


in nobody's eyes but mine (nobody ever had a dream around here)

by imprintofadream (imprint_of_a_doe)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen, Inception Big Bang Challenge, M/M, academic!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 17:35:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imprint_of_a_doe/pseuds/imprintofadream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur lives with his step-sister Mal and teaches literature at university level, and Eames is a pioneer in the academic field of Dream Imagery. When Eames takes an interest in Arthur's dissertation and Arthur takes an interest in <i>Eames</i>, they each have opportunities which hadn't been available to them before. But Eames disappears after pushing Arthur down a new path in his research that--with assistance from fellow professor Dom Cobb--captivates him a little too fully, and when it's all said and done, Eames makes off with the credit for the research and Arthur aims to get even by using everything he's learned. And he means <i>everything.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	in nobody's eyes but mine (nobody ever had a dream around here)

**Author's Note:**

> **warnings:** mentions of past abuse/stalking; language; non-explicit sexual situations and thoughts.
> 
>  **notes:** written as part of the [inception big bang](http://inception_bang.livejournal.com). the artist partnered with me was [the wonderful gloriana](http://gloriana.livejournal.com), and you can stop by and see the beautiful masterpost for the art [here](http://gloriana.livejournal.com/138574.html). please stop by and show some love for these beautiful pieces! (she even jumped in as a pinch hitter late in the game and worked me through to the end!)

  
  


  
**on the field i remember you were incredible**   


“But see, Chillingsworth actually _says_ that he shouldn’t have expected her to remain faithful because, well, she’s half his age and beautiful and he’s a scholar, you know? He probably neglected her for research even when they were together. That’s where the hump comes from, from all the studying and stuff. He doesn’t blame her too much and she doesn’t really blame herself--she thought he was dead, after all, and while he’s obviously pissed-- _hello,_ see his revenge on Dimmesdale--he doesn’t really take it out on Hester.”

Arthur’s hand is pressed over his mouth in an attempt to hide his wide smile, but his shoulders are shaking and his dimples are visible and half of his students are staring at him. It’s no good, really. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at your analysis. I’m just laughing at the way you categorized all scholars as egocentric, abusive assholes with humps and, uh, I’m a scholar. I just really hope you lot don’t think it’s an accurate portrayal of me.”

Danny blinks as the rest of the class laughs, shaking his head. He shrugs, a loose movement that draws his pen across the page in front of him. “Ah, no, sorry, Prof, of course not. Didn’t mean to, uh, call you an egocentric, abusive asshole. You’re only either egocentric or an asshole, but definitely not all three.”

“Thank you, precisely my thoughts,” Arthur agrees, grinning as he waves his copy of _The Scarlet Letter_ over their heads. “And on that note, thank you for your participation in analyzing this novel with me. I enjoyed hearing your thoughts. Keep thinking about the passages I assigned your groups to include in your papers and start reading Poe--we’ll be discussing his work next Tuesday. Now, please, go enjoy your weekend and get a start on that paper--a paradox, yes, I’m aware. Email me any questions you have about the prompts or just ask next week after class, yeah?”

He turns around to start packing his shit up, still smiling. This class is easily his favorite--the second he’s taught and so far it’s going wonderfully. It helps that he generally loves the source material too, and that everything in his life seems to be working out.

“Arthur?”

“Ariadne.” He looks up at her as he slings his messenger bag over his shoulder and picks up his portfolio to stuff into it. “What can I help you with?”

“Ah, I just... I forgot to turn in my passage analysis on Tuesday but I emailed it to you earlier today. Do you want a hard copy or...?”

“I’d like one, yeah. Actually, wait, you know, I have two lives, and in this life? In this life I have a printer. Nah, it’s fine, you’re good. Get out of my classroom now, please, and thank you for your participation today.”

She disappears quickly, scarf and hair flying behind her, but there’s a skip in her step. Really, he’s lucky to have these kids as his guinea pigs.

Arthur’s phone rings as he’s checking his box in Humanities, ringtone obnoxious in the otherwise quiet office. Dominic Cobb side-eyes him from across the room but as far as Arthur is concerned, he has no ground to stand on. He’s been cited in the library for talking too loudly far too many times, even as a professor, and, christ, there are _action hero figurines_ in his office. It’s really quite worrisome.

“Hey, yeah, on my way home, stop worrying.”

“Well, can you pick up condoms, chéri? And a pack of ballpoint pens--the Bic ones, you know, blue or black or purple ink--and also, we’re out of coffee thingies.”

“Mal, I told you to order the coffee refills online like last week when we were getting to the bottom of the box. And why do _I_ always have to pick up the condoms? Seriously, pitch in a little.”

Arthur’s box is one he shares with a grad student teaching a course on, fuck, something like Macroeconomics and how it connects to communication studies, Arthur has no idea, really, but their mail often gets rather mixed. It also doesn’t help that there’s another A. Levine teaching here and sometimes assignments get put into his box when they shouldn’t be. Checking his box is more of an event than he first expected when he learned he’d be getting one.

Mal sighs into the phone and Arthur ducks away from it, swearing at her under his breath as he sorts through the things in the box, looking for anything addressed to him specifically.

And then his hand pauses over a pale green envelope with his full name on it. It’s not an essay or a request scrawled on a scrap of lined paper for a meeting outside of his office hours. The faculty memos are delivered on neon bright flyers, usually, or via email, so to have an actual letter is a strange event. “Did you leave me a letter in my box? Mal, seriously, you can be so annoying. If this is that complaint about me throwing away the last of that expired ice cream, you’re three months late anyway.”

_“I knew you threw that away, you asshole! I knew it wasn’t the dog! She can’t even reach the freezer!”_

Not from Mal, then. Arthur looks at Dom again, who is still loitering by a potted plant on the windowsill and seems to be listening rather intently. “Dom.” The sharpness of Arthur’s tone makes him jump and he spins around with wide eyes, guileless as he can be. There’s a purple stain on his shirt Arthur doesn’t ask about. “Did you leave this in my box.”

“No.” Arthur stares and Dom’s face crumples. “No, really, I didn’t.”

“You’re a terrible liar. What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Dom scratches his shoulder. “But if I tell you I saw the person who did leave it for you will you tell me if Mal is your girlfriend?”

“Mal is my dog,” Arthur says, because, no, he is not setting Dom up with his half-sister, dear _god_ that would end badly for him. Imagine having to put up with him _all the time_. It’d be like having two pathetic-looking dogs in the house. Maggs might like him but Arthur is _not_ ready for that.

Plus, imagine if he and Mal got serious. Imagine all the action figures that would take over Arthur’s living space.

He can’t have that.

Dom looks disappointed and Arthur hurriedly shoves all of his mail into his messenger bag with everything else he has on him, clasping it closed and poking the edges of paper sticking out back inside. “See ya, Dom. And, _yes,_ okay, Mal, I’ll pick up the fucking condoms, _jesus._ ”

**on the match with the boys you think you’re all alone**

“You didn’t buy the right kind of condoms. Again.” Mal stares at him from over the open plastic bag on the counter in their kitchen, accusatory and broken-hearted. “Arthur, why must you be so difficult?”

“Get them yourself, Mallorie. It’s not like you’re even using them right now.”

“Fuck you, darling.”

“Rather not, thank you, because that’s called incest. Have you been seeing your therapist regularly?”

“Non, he looked at me funny when I told him you kept buying the wrong condoms, so I left him.”

“Mal.”

“Arthur.”

He grins at her, shakes his head as he opens the fridge to put the milk away. “How are you, by the way?”

She folds herself onto a barstool at the counter, smiling back at him. “I’m well. I met the most interesting man today at the gallery. He told me he’d like to paint my vagina and I kissed his cheek before I slapped him. Men here say the sweetest things to me.”

“Good.” Arthur snorts. “You should probably stop telling me things like this. I’m not your girlfriend, you know.”

“No, you’re my brother and my roommate and therefore my only form of consolation in this city because all my coworkers are pricks and the people at the grocery store won’t stop to talk to me. I miss being home. I miss having friends here.”

Mal is two years younger than Arthur and has only been living in the city with him for four months. Up to that point, she’d stayed with their mom and commuted to a school the next city over to get her Bachelor’s degree. There was major drama back at home with her ex-boyfriend that caused her to abruptly move and then she’d interviewed at an art gallery here, been hired, and moved in with Arthur a week later, after she grew tired of hotels and his previous roommate moved out.

To be honest, Arthur kind of likes having her around. Most of the time. Even if she is picky and stubborn and intrusive, even if she never does the dishes and leaves her stuff all over the bathroom counter. He feels happier with her around, and relieved to always know she’s okay.

“Call Mom,” he says, finally putting the last of the groceries away. “Did you walk Maggie today?”

“Yeah, down to the park.” Mal finds her pens in one of the bags and nods her thanks at him. Her hair bobs around her face, springy and recently cut. “What was that letter in your box?”

“Check my mail, it’s in a green envelope,” he says absently. He waves her toward his messenger bag and reaches up to open a cabinet and replace the old coffee refills.

“ _Arthur Levine, Comparative Literature Lecturer and Ph.D. Candidate._ Jesus, all those titles are so fucking pretentious. Blah blah blah.” She rips the envelope open as he rolls his eyes, pulling the empty box down from the cabinet to toss.

“Did you have to leave this in here?” he asks, turning around. She makes a face at him and he throws the empty box at her lightly. Maggie trots into the kitchen then, picks up the box and brings it to him, and he’s crouched on the floor rubbing her ears when Mal screeches.

Arthur is up on his feet and around the counter in seconds, his hands out, heart beating fast because Mal is his _baby sister_ and _jesus_ if she got hurt on his watch _what would Mom say_ and _what’s in that envelope is she okay god fucking damn it--_

But Mal is just staring at the letter on the counter, wide eyed, one hand over her lips--which, what the fuck--are turning up at the edges.

“Jesus, _Mal,_ you nearly gave me a heart attack. Don’t _do_ that if nothing is wrong!”

She reaches out to pat his forearm as he leans over the counter, rubbing his forehead. “I’m sorry, Arthur, I didn’t mean to. I was surprised, is all. But, oh, god, you have to hear this. Sit, sit, please.”

He does, shaking his head. He’s suddenly tired, his day catching up with him as the adrenaline fades back out of his bloodstream. Opening the new coffee is starting to sound like the best idea he’s had yet.

 _“Mr. Levine--I happened to learn you were teaching here while I was passing through town. I wondered if I might sit in on one of your classes? Informally, I am just another educator wishing to see how you run your classroom and whether or not you live up to Professor Cobb’s claims that you’re one of the most attractive educators on staff. Formally, you shall find out more later. If you could email me back, I’d much appreciate it. For the time being, call me Eames. :D_ And there’s a cell number and email here too.... They drew a smiley face, oh my god.” Mal starts giggling as Arthur turns to stare at her.

“You’re fucking joking.”

“Non, lis-le.”

So Arthur reads it, aware that his mouth is hanging open the slightest bit. “What the fuck does that even mean? Mal? I swear to God if this was a prank on your part...”

“No, it wasn’t! I have no idea what this is! Also, who is Professor Cobb and why does he or she think you’re hot?”

“Oh, God, I hadn’t even registered that part. I’m going to throw up.”

Mal smiles at him, dangerous, and pulls his phone toward her from where it’s lying on the counter in front of them. “Can I email him?”

“What? No, Mal, I’ll do it later, if I decide to. And why do you think it’s a him?” He reaches over to pluck his phone out of her hands, shoving it in his back pocket for good measure. Part of him knows that if she really decides to pursue it, taking that step really doesn’t do anything to protect it. She has no boundaries whatsoever and they both know it.

“Oh, come on, really, what woman would call herself Eames?”

Arthur concedes her point gracelessly, and they argue about it as he makes dinner, as they settle in front of the tv for Suits, as Mal keeps reading specific lines out loud and reminding him to email back, interrupting him from both his show and the grading he’s doing during the commercials.

In the end, he gives in because she’s so persistent and he knows she would hack into his email while he slept and probably send a picture of him sleeping for Eames’ consideration. Better safe than sorry, really.

_Eames--_

_Thank you for your interest in my teaching methods. I admit I am curious about said interest, but you are welcome to sit in on my American Renaissance Literature class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:10 to 3:35 in Hum 321 or to email me to set up a meeting time if you’d prefer._

_Don’t believe Professor Cobb. He collects enough action figures to suggest his judgment must be seriously impaired._

__

Arthur Levine Comparative Literature Lecturer and Ph.D. Candidate 

**leave your number on the locker and i’ll give you a call**

Arthur doesn’t hear back from Eames until Saturday, when he’s cleaning the bathroom and Mal is vacuuming the living room, where he’s left his phone. He doesn’t even know he’s meeting Eames for lunch at a small cafe on campus at 2 until Mal asks him when he’s leaving an hour beforehand.

Consequently, she invites herself along.

It’s only a small cafe on campus, popular during the week but less so on the weekends when most students are working or off screwing around in the nice weather. Arthur needs to be back at the apartment, cleaning up and settling in to work on his next project--i.e. finishing his dissertation and getting his degree, finding a more permanent job, finding some way to get back at Mal for this--something productive.

There are only five tables taken, four of which are occupied by groups of students. Arthur assumes the single occupant at the table by the window must be Eames.

Arthur and Mal study the man while they wait in the short line to get a snack and coffee, Mal waggling her eyebrows suggestively and Arthur attracting attention from the people nearest them as he hip-checks her out of line in retaliation. The guy doesn’t look up from his iPad though, and Mal rolls her eyes as she steps back in front of him to order her frozen yogurt and fruit.

While she’s busy, Arthur continues to look at him. Eames. He wasn’t sure what he expected--wasn’t sure if he should be nervous or flattered or creeped out, but Eames looks like a normal guy, around his age, wearing a t-shirt that reveals a few tattoos swirling up his bicep, the black ink more tempting than Arthur usually admits to anyone but Mal--even then, only when he’s very drunk.

Mal orders his coffee as well, pulls him out of line to wait off to the side. She grins up at him, links her arm through his. “I’m really glad I came. If he’s not interested in you, can I have him for myself?”

“No, Mal, no dating for you right now. Remember?” She blinks up at him and her eyebrows lower just the slightest bit, her lips pinching and shoulders tensing. She makes to take her arm back and he puts his around her instead, holding her close. “Not until everything is straightened out, okay? I just want you to be safe and happy, you know that. Now isn’t a healthy time. You’ll just have to make do with me.”

“I can’t have sex with you,” she says bluntly, and he laughs, startled, as she lifts her head to smile at him timidly. She’s healing, slowly, and he’s only glad to see it. Sometimes he doesn’t realize just how far she’s come.

By the time they get their order, Eames is looking at the both of them consideringly. His gaze is slightly amused, intrigued, and when they walk toward him he grins at them, wide and open. “I take it you’re Arthur Levine, then?” He stands up, reaches out to take Arthur’s hand. His mouth is obscene. Arthur tries not to notice.

“Yeah. Nice to meet you. This is Mal.”

Eames sits down then, and Arthur and Mal follow suit, everyone staring at each other and smiling in that awkward way first meetings so often go until Mal finally says, “So, Eames, what are your intentions so far as Arthur is concerned?”

Arthur sighs but doesn’t interrupt--he just takes a sip of his mocha, watching the two of them now. Mal looks determined even as she scoops the fruit over her yogurt, spilling onto the tabletop, and Eames is still grinning, now more than before. “Ah, Mal, don’t worry, I’m not after his virtue, not primarily. I’m rather interested in his teaching style, though, and his dissertation.”

Arthur blinks. “I’m not even finished with my dissertation yet.”

“Your advisor was talking to me about it. Professor Saito seemed rather intrigued so I thought I’d step in and see what all the fuss was about.”

“Who are you, though?” Arthur asks, frowning now as he sets his coffee down. “What’s with the interest in me and my work, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Eames grins at him, taps a button on his iPad and turns it around so Arthur can see the screen. “I work at another university and next fall we’re going to need to add a professor to our comparative literature department, specifically one specializing in English and American literature for at least two courses, which I have been assured is a particular interest of yours. In the future, we might be interested in the ideas you’re presenting in your dissertation as well, possibly for a new department. As such, I am merely checking out the names we’ve gotten wind of, informally. Technically I shouldn’t have told you ahead of time, but--” Eames shrugs, gestures at the screen where the email sits “-- I think it’s better this way. Gives you some time to prepare and get some ideas.”

Mal’s eyebrows have lifted and she reaches out for the iPad, reading the presented page as Arthur continues to frown at Eames. “Oh, wow, we didn’t expect this. I honestly thought you were just a student hitting on him or something,” she says.

Arthur snorts and reaches out to pinch her forearm, finally breaking his gaze from Eames’. “Jesus, Mal, have a bit of class.”

“Fuck off,” she replies, just to be contrary, and she grins as she hands the iPad back to Eames. “So, Eames, are you single?”

“Mal!”

“I just want to know!”

“Don’t answer that!” Eames watches the two of them, eyebrows lifted, and Arthur shakes his head and puts his hand over Mal’s shoulder. “Mal, can you behave for five minutes?”

“No,” she says, “I’m sexually frustrated and I can’t get off on fantasizing about his mouth if he’s married or something. I’d feel _guilty_.”

Eames seems to choke on air before he starts laughing, loud and unrestrained, head thrown back, and Arthur is embarrassed beyond measure, he really is, but he’s also fucking distracted because Eames is kind of _gorgeous._ He’s relaxed and comfortable in his own skin, confident and intelligent if he’s recruiting candidates for a teaching position, and _god_ but his laugh is nice, better even than his accent, and Arthur has already got a weakness for accents that makes his knees quiver just the slightest bit. He does not need this, not in the least.

“No, oh, god, no, I’m not married nor am I dating anyone at the moment.” Eames shakes his head, calming down, and shrugs. “I really am here for academic reasons. Speaking of which... Arthur, could you tell me about your dissertation?”

And so Arthur spends the rest of the meeting, the rest of his afternoon even, talking about how literature encourages multiple realities and how this might not be entirely healthy despite the brain activity it encourages, about how specific words trigger sense reactions in the brain and what that means for his work, about dreams and literature and reality in general. Eames leaves with a thoughtful but delighted look on his face, shaking Arthur’s hand again and winking at Mal.

Arthur’s hackles rise at that despite how much he’s relaxed around Eames, and he’s not sure if it’s because he’s protective of Mal or because he wants Eames to wink at him instead.

**on the streets, such a sweet face jumping in town**

Arthur puts Eames out of his mind for the rest of the weekend, focusing instead on his dissertation. Talking it over with Eames had made him realize some points need clarification, others more evidence, and Mal is, mercifully, quiet as he works late Saturday night, listening to a movie soundtrack on iTunes as he works, flipping through books and internet articles and typing away loudly. She kisses him on top of his head when she goes to bed and he reaches up to squeeze her hand as he continues to read.

By Monday, he feels slightly better about the sections he worked on, going over them with Professor Saito. Saito has always been a good advisor, willing to listen and to nudge him in the right direction, usually wryly amused. He gives off an aura of power and intelligence which Arthur is nearly jealous of, because he’s fairly certain his students will never respect him the way he respects Saito.

“---so I would look for more brain psychology studies as well to add in, just as evidence. True that psychology and neurology are not your specialties, but as they inform a reader’s interpretation, you might be able to apply them, and dreams are largely affected by psychology themselves.” Saito sits back in his seat and steeples his fingers over his stomach, watching Arthur scribble notes down. “I was informed by a colleague of mine that you have been approached about a proper professorial position come next fall?”

Arthur blinks, shrugs as he closes his notebook. “Well, Eames did talk to me briefly, but I’m not done with my dissertation yet, and consequently don’t have my doctorate yet, so I don’t know why they’re looking at me.”

“You should have both by the end of our spring semester, Arthur, should you not?”

“I hope,” Arthur says, “but it’s probably not advisable to get comfortable thinking I’ll have a job as soon as I’m done. I’m still going to be looking around and inquiring about positions. Eames told me it’s informal at this point and he’s just stopping in on a few potential candidates to see how we’re coming along.”

Saito shakes his head then, and Arthur wonders what part of his thought process is wrong. If Saito shakes his head, he’s spotted a problem, and he knows the proper answer. Arthur waits. “No, Mr. Levine, what Eames neglected to inform you of is that a mere four candidates are being considered for the position. Your odds are much better than you presume them to be, though, indeed, you are right to continue looking and have a back-up plan ready in the event that things do not go as I predict.”

“I.... Wow. Why are they so selective?” Arthur asks, because it’s mindboggling to him to know that he is one of four candidates, that of all the students getting their doctorate in a branch of literature, Arthur is among their early selection.

“They prefer... let’s just say this university is known for hiring faculty with interesting ideas. Ideas are everything to them, and when you work there, your ideas belong to the collective. You are encouraged to work with other professors, encouraged to publish with them instead of working for your own glory. They must see in you that you’d be willing to do such things, or they might find your ideas about reality, dreams, the subconscious, and literature interesting enough to merit further clarification after your dissertation is published.”

Arthur hums under his breath, thinking it through, and Saito lifts a hand to sweep him back to the present. “Of course, you have quite a bit of time before you have to worry about it. There are ten months between now and the beginning of the next fall semester, though you may be formally approached in the spring if they are serious about you. In the meantime, please work on the section we discussed and revise it. Bring it back to me next Monday and we’ll proceed from there.”

Arthur makes dinner for Mal and himself that night, still mildly surprised by the conversation he’s had with Saito. When she gets home, he forgets all about this, because her cheeks are bright pink and her eyes are angry, her fists clenched as she _throws_ her bag down on the floor. “I can’t stand this!”

“Are you okay?” Arthur turns off the burner on the stove and moves the pan back, watching Mal all the while. Her movements are shaky, rushed, and she paces back and forth across the living room.

“He called me again,” she says, and her voice is vicious, startlingly so.

“What?”

“He--he called me. Today. At my work number. I don’t even know how he found out! He wasn’t even supposed to know what city I moved to!”

Arthur thinks back to the faculty profile Eames had showed them on Saturday, and he knows Mal has her own professional profile on the art gallery’s website, and anger burns in him then, because they should have _known_ that any Google search of her name would lead her ex-boyfriend right back to her. The restraining order won’t hold him at bay, Mal and Arthur both know this.

“Let the guards at work know who is he and what he looks like, Mal, and if you need me to I can meet you after work everyday and we can go home together.”

She shakes her head, still angry but slowing down, wiping at her eyes, fierce and sad. “I shouldn’t need you to, Arthur. This is bullshit. I just... I just wish one of us had seen it before it got so serious. God _damn_ it.”

Mal finally sits down on the sofa, head in her hands, and Arthur takes the seat next to her, pulls her into him. “Hey, it’s not your fault things happened this way, not at _all_. He’s diseased, you know? Maybe we missed the warning signs, but it’s not like we were looking, Mal. We wanted to trust him, and we did, and that was a mistake.”

“A fucking huge one,” she mutters, her head falling back onto his shoulder as she stares up at the ceiling. Her cheeks are still pink and he pushes her hair back to kiss her temple.

“Look, I’m going to meet you after work for a few days at least, okay? Just to be safe.” She nods, resigned. “What’d he say to you anyway?”

“That it was cruel of me to run away from him, and some bullshit about his love still surviving past that. I told him to leave me alone and go fuck himself.”

Arthur snorts and wishes the bastard would. He reaches out and grabs his phone off the coffee table, presses it into her hands. “Call Mom, okay? Tell her everything and let her calm you down, and I’ll finish making dinner.”

In the wake of this news, Arthur forgets everything he had to share, forgets even to prepare properly for class, and, in the end, forgets Eames is even coming to observe him.

**in a car with a girl, promise me she’s not your world**

Mal gets off work early on Tuesday, and Arthur races across town to pick her up before his class. The bus ends up being late and Mal ends up coming to class with him, and when they walk in, both breathing hard, Arthur looks up at the clock and realizes he’s six minutes late and his students are staring at him and Mal, amused beyond measure, while Eames stands at the back of the classroom and raises his eyebrows.

Arthur swears under his breath, ushers Mal to a seat in the back. “Sorry, sorry, everyone, the buses were running a bit late this afternoon, so we’ll be diving right in.” He tosses his bag down onto the table at the front of the room, pulls the anthology out of it and leans back against the table, facing his students. “Now, first impressions on _The Purloined Letter?”_

Ariadne grins, looks around at her fellows. “You’re not going to give us a history lesson on Poe like you usually do, Arthur?”

Arthur makes a face at her. “Must we?” he jokes, settling in more comfortably and setting the anthology aside. “Very well then. What do you all know of Poe? What did you read in his introduction? How does it affect his work? There are critics on every side here...”

And from there they move on. Arthur ignores Eames and Mal, who have moved to sit together. He’s not even sure Eames is listening to the lecture, which is half a blessing as he moves through the characters and the situation, explaining Poe’s method of storytelling even as he encourages his students to figure it out in the discussion.

Ariadne brings up that Poe seems more interested in the method of solving a mystery than the actual solution, which sparks a debate about whether or not that’s relevant and where the evidence within the text comes from, whether or not that’s Poe’s view on writing or life in general, if it’s a metaphor at all. Arthur weighs in, grinning good-naturedly. He really does honestly like this class, the twenty students who bother to show up all participate; he’s weeded out all the kids who aren’t interested anymore, and as such class is productive beyond measure.

By the time their seventy-five minutes are up, Arthur is reluctant to let the class go, and a few straggle on their way out the door, pausing to stop and ask him questions about the text, about the paper due on Thursday, about the midterms he’s still grading.

Ariadne shyly asks what he thought of the original work she’d sent him to look over for her last month, and he spends a while reassuring her that he likes it, that her plot-building is the best part, the most intricate he’s had the pleasure of seeing in a while. She leaves with a blush on her cheeks, shoulders up around her ears, and he smiles after her.

In the end, he’s stays back a quarter of an hour before he can make his way back to Mal and Eames.

“Coffee?” he asks, standing above their desks.

Mal jumps up, twining her scarf around her neck and pulling her coat on as Eames grins. Something in his eyes gives Arthur his answer before he even opens his mouth. “I’d love to, Arthur, but I’m afraid I have to meet someone this evening. I enjoyed sitting on your class immensely.” He holds his hand out to shake, and Arthur, bewildered, lets him go. He’d have thought, having Eames observe the class, that they’d discuss it afterwards, discuss more about what Eames is after and maybe he’d get constructive criticism on his teaching style but--

“Well,” Mal says, still standing at his side even though he’s forgotten her, “are you buying?”

He badgers her all the way across campus to the cafe, where, sadly, they are interrupted.

Arthur wants to die.

“Arthur! Arthur, hey, wait up!”

He wants to keep walking, but Mal has already reacted, is tugging on the sleeve of his jacket and looking back over her shoulder. “Arthur, there’s someone calling you. He looks like he needs your attention rather urgently,” she says mildly, half-amused, and Arthur reluctantly turns to face Dom Cobb.

“Hi, Dom.”

“Hi, yeah, hi, uh, so...” Dom pauses next to them, runs his hand through his hair--it needs to be washed--and he is clearly trying not to look at Mal. “Getting coffee then?” he says, swinging his hands together, and Arthur wants to cringe.

“Yeah,” he says shortly.

Dom quails a bit and then seems to fill his chest with air. “I’m so sorry I haven’t introduced myself,” he says, all in one breath, turning to Mal. “I’m Dominic Cobb, Professor of Dream Psychology.”

Mal grins, doesn’t stick her hand out. “I’m Mallorie Levine.”

Arthur wants to roll his eyes, but refrains for Mal’s sake--and also because it’s rather amusing to see Dom’s face lose all its color. “Oh. Oh, I... I didn’t know you were married, Arthur. I mean, wow, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mallorie.”

Mal laughs then, sparkling, and finally introduces herself properly. “It’s Mal, actually, and my last name is truly Miles. Arthur is my half-brother.”

Dom squints at them, like he’s trying to see what they’re both laughing at, before he reaches out for Mal’s hand and shakes it slowly. “Right. That... makes sense. Didn’t you tell me Mal was your dog?” he asks Arthur.

Arthur ducks away from Mal as she reaches out to hit him, and he’s surprised when Dom grins. He hasn’t spent much time around Dom, has never wanted to, but he looks younger when he smiles, and Mal notices, and Arthur wishes she wouldn’t, needs her to not. _Think about the state of the apartment, for god’s sake!_

“We’ve got to get going, Dom, unless you had a question or something?”

“Oh,” Dom blinks, finally looks away from Mal, who looks like she’s found a fun new game. “I, uh, I guess I was just wondering if you were going to the faculty brunch next Friday morning? I know you don’t have a class on Fridays...”

Arthur has honestly forgotten about it, and he just shrugs now. “I don’t know yet.”

“I think they want us each to bring something. I’m in charge of the list, is all, so, uh, can you call or text me to let me know if you’re coming and what you’re bringing?” Dom grins at him, just a bit, and gets his phone out of his back pocket. It’s an old flip phone and Arthur, who loves new Apple products like any pretentious Ph.D. candidate, barely stops himself from saying something.

Mal isn’t so couth. “Wow, old fashioned, aren’t you?”

Dom flushes bright red. It’s somewhat alarming, truth be told. “I broke my last phone and these old ones are bricks... and they’re fun to flip when I get bored, that’s all. I don’t think I have your number, Arthur. Do you mind?”

Arthur sighs and rattles it off, grabs for Mal’s hand. “Thanks, Dom, I’ll get in touch, yeah? We’re about to miss our bus though...”

They wave and are off before Dom fully comprehends, and Mal shakes her head at Arthur as they walk away. “He seems nice, Arthur. What’s wrong with you?”

“He’s a dolt, Mal.”

“It’s kind of charming. I think he was just flustered.”

He looks up at the cloudy sky above and groans. “Oh, god, please don’t.” She laughs against his side and he’s reminded, suddenly, irrationally, of Eames, laughing at them over coffee on Saturday, gossiping in whispers at the back of his classroom today. Arthur wonders who he’s meeting, what’s more pressing than the discussion Arthur thought they were going to have. “Mal, what was Eames saying?” he asks again, and she rolls her eyes and shakes her head, hair hitting him in the face until he leans away.

“Non, Arthur.”

“S'il te plaît.”

“Non!”

They bicker all the way through their wait for the next bus and the trip that follows, all the way up the stairs to his apartment, but Mal will not tell him what Eames was discussing with her, will not tell him if she thinks it went well, and he will not let her sway him on his opinion of Dom Cobb. In the end, he leaves for a run to get away from the frustration.

She bakes madeleines that night in a silent apology, but still does not offer any information up, and he gives up on asking or expecting her to.

Which is why, when Eames calls him Wednesday night, he picks up without even realizing who it is.

“Arthur! Thank you for taking my call.”

Arthur blinks, in the middle of underlining a misquoted source in Danny’s midterm paper, and his hand pauses. “Oh, uh, hey, Eames. What’s up?” He winces because he really does not like to sound like an idiot, and he must, because Mal is staring at the carpet in an attempt not to laugh. She’s not doing very well.

“Hmm, had a spare moment and reminded myself I needed to call you. Are you free tomorrow night after class?”

“I have to pick Mal up from the art gallery at five thirty, but after that, sure,” he says, and his heart is pounding because _what will Eames tell him?_ and _where did he go the other night? why didn’t we talk then? is this because he wants me alone without Mal? why?_ but _god, his mouth--_

“Cool, yeah, want to meet for dinner and talk?” Eames asks, and he sounds distracted, sounds like he’s wrestling with someone or trying to cook or--Arthur really has no idea what Eames could be doing, so he stops thinking about it before his mind ends up somewhere dirty. Other educators, especially ones considering him for a job, should not be the subject of wank-fantasies or misplaced jealousy. He wants to believe that.

“Sure,” Arthur says again. “Uh, should I bring anything?”

“Nah, just yourself and maybe a sweater. It’s been a bit chilly since I arrived, hasn’t it?”

Arthur ‘hmm’s because he doesn’t know when Eames arrived, really, nor what he considers chilly. Would he think Arthur’s feet are chilly in the middle of the night? Or Arthur’s nose, or Arthur’s fingers when he tried to twine them together? And Arthur is out of bounds again, because Eames’ voice is a terrible thing for focus.

“I’ll text you the restaurant tomorrow, yeah?”

“Cool. I guess I’ll see you then.” Arthur pulls his hand through his hair, slow and rough, and slouches further into his sofa.

“Sure thing. Good night, Arthur. Tell Mal I say hello, hmm?”

He’s left staring at his phone, thoroughly confused until Mal throws the remote at him.

**you’re a star in nobody’s eyes but mine**

Mal is waiting for him at the top of the stairs leading out of the lobby of the gallery, bouncing on her toes and trying to hold onto a large wrapped portrait in her hands. Arthur takes it from her as soon as he’s close, rolling his eyes and chiding her for bringing her work home, for cluttering up his apartment. She lifts an eyebrow and ties the belt around her trench coat tighter, leading the way down the steps again.

“You’re a teacher, Arthur--your job description is to bring home most of the crap in the world, so don’t chastise me for a few errant paintings.”

He rolls his eyes. “Mal, seriously, is this necessary?”

“Yes,” she says, simple, unconcerned. “Did you text either Eames or that Dom Cobb man today?”

“Dinner with Eames at seven, downtown at some chain restaurant. I don’t know, whatever. And no, Mal, I didn’t fucking text Dominic Cobb, jesus. I don’t even want to go to that faculty brunch.”

“Did he text you?”

“Does it matter?”

Mal glances at him sideways and he realizes she’s frowning, lips pursed in a way that means she’s holding back. Her shoulders are thrown back, her strides long enough to match his, and he’s just noticed how antagonized she appears. “What?”

“Maybe I’m fishing because I want his number, Arthur.”

“Mal,” he says--starts--but she’s stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, fingers curled into fists at her sides, and--

“No, Arthur! God, I am so sick and _tired_ of people telling me what to do, what’s good for me and what’s bad and who I should associate with and why I need to be careful! I get that you’re all worried, I do! I don’t blame any of you for Nash and I don’t blame myself--I know he was a freak, I knew it then, and the only thing I’m ashamed of is that I let it go on for so long because I was afraid of what would happen if I tried to stop it. And, I just, _honestly_ , I wish I could just... carry on the way I wanted.”

Arthur stares at her, fingers cramping around the frame in his hands, and feels something like shame and guilt lap through him, and he’s at war with himself because he’d _seen_ Mal when she got away from Nash, he’d rushed back to their mom’s house and held her when she screamed and known the only thing he could do was be there for her and protect her should Nash come looking. He’d felt utterly helpless, and now he feels like an asshole, because his helping isn’t what she’s needed, or wanted, or--

“I’m sorry,” she says, sighing and looking away now, “but you don’t have to be my keeper, Arthur, you know that?”

He swallows and nods, looking down at the sidewalk for something to do. “I... yeah, I’m beginning to realize that. I--this isn’t an excuse for how we’ve all been micromanaging you, I know that, but we really _have_ been worried, Mal. God, we were so afraid for you, and so _angry_ , and I should just... trust you to know when you’re ready, but that’s harder than it should be.”

They’re quiet for a moment, people parting to move around them on the sidewalk, and then she walks back up to his side and nudges him with her elbow. “You should trust me. I’m the only one who knows what kind of condoms to get.”

He snorts out a laugh, looking back up at her, and she tilts her head half in apology, half in challenge. He nods.

“Fine, I’ll fucking give you Cobb’s number so you can put those to--oh, god, _please_ , Mal, please don’t bring him back to my apartment!”

“Would you rather I go to his?”

“Oh, god,” Arthur says, and he pictures Dominic Cobb in his kitchen and realizes his life is out of control.

**you never shine**

Arthur leaves after grabbing a jacket, pushed out ot the apartment by Mal as soon as he has his hands on one, and by the time he gets downtown, he’s ten minutes early and left to stare at his phone until Eames gets there.

“I forgot to ask,” Eames says in lieu of a proper greeting, “if you even like cheesecake. Because there’s really no use in coming to the Cheesecake Factory if you dislike cheesecake.”

Arthur looks sideways at him, smiling a bit, and asks, “If I told you cheesecake wasn’t my thing, would it affect your opinion of me academically?”

“Of course,” Eames says, nodding seriously. “Honestly, desserts are a major part of the academic discourse, Arthur.”

He shakes his head, then, setting his jacket over the back of a bench as he sits to wait. “I have been a part of the academic lifestyle for years, Mr. Eames. I am well versed in desserts--especially cheesecakes.”

Eames laughs, gestures at the hostess stand, and returns a moment later. “Ten minute wait, not bad at all.”

“Are you wearing purple with pink?” Arthur asks, finally seeing Eames head on. He feels personally offended. “It’s so _violent_. I feel like you’re going to murder me or break into song.”

“You’re wearing paisley, so I assume you’re not actually whatever age you claim to be,” Eames counters.

“My _tie_ is paisley. I’m allowed to engage in a bit of pattern, Mr. Eames.”

“You’re wearing a tie, when you didn’t teach today, to the Cheesecake Factory.”

Arthur pauses, mouth open, and concedes the point. He doesn’t know how to get out of it, though, because he’d put on a tie thinking about Eames before he left to pick up Mal, and he hadn’t even thought about how it would look, if it said he was maybe thinking of Eames using it to pull him forward and into him. He hopes not, god, that would be embarrassing if he was that transparent. In the end, he shrugs. “Blame Mal.”

Eames grins at him, and then the hostess is there, guiding them through the restaurant to a table near the windows, and Arthur is surprised a bit but--it is early on a Thursday night.

By the time they’ve ordered their food, they each have a beer in front of them, Eames’ dark and Arthur’s pale, and Eames is going on about some conference call he was part of in the afternoon while Arthur smiles at him and laughs and generally begins to forget why he’s here. He watches Eames, as he drinks his beer, as he gestures wildly and laughs and god but his teeth are so fucked. Arthur wants to hold Eames still, wants to press into his mouth with his tongue and see just how jacked they really are.

This is, still, wildly inappropriate and Arthur blames his distraction on the upheaval he experienced when Mal chastised him for trying to run her life.

Arthur, it seems, is incapable of running his _own_ life to satisfactory measures.

“So,” he says, breaking in when Eames has finished ordering his meal, “What’d you invite me out for tonight? I assume it has to do with class yesterday?” He doesn’t ask about the other meeting, not yet, because--well, he doesn’t want to seem nosy, he really isn’t, usually, but--

Eames straightens up, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth as he puts his beer back down.

“Right, yes. I originally wanted to congratulate you on your students, actually. They’re very engaged, and you do wonderfully leading them into the discussion and keeping them on track while letting them do most of the thinking. It was refreshing to see that--I won’t say who, but one of the other candidates literally lectured for the entire three hour block, and that was never really the best way for me to learn or feel as if it was important that I participate when I was a student.”

Arthur flushes with pleasure, because he really does love his students, and he really did get lucky. He tells Eames so. “If I hadn’t had students who were so interested in the material--or at least the methods used by each author--I don’t think the class could have been as successful.”

“You’re selling yourself short. You’ve encouraged them to participate, guided them into being open. They’re more likely to step up if you lead them, which you have. The position we’re trying to fill next fall would benefit from a style like yours, in my personal opinion, but I know that isn’t all you’re interested in.”

“Saito never actually told me specifically what you were looking into my dissertation for,” Arthur says then, feeling as if this is what Eames really wants to talk about tonight. His stomach seems to be tangling itself in knots, even as the waiter sets their food down in front of him. This dissertation is his entire life right now.

Eames lifts his glass up as the waiter leaves, nods for a refill, and turns back to Arthur. He rests his forearms on the table, hands clasped in front of him as he leans in, and Arthur stares and tries not to, because he’s exceedingly nervous and he wants Eames’ opinions, he really does, but he also wants Eames’ fingers inside him, and maybe he’s moving too fast, but he has a stock of condoms that Mal won’t use anyway, and--

“I know you didn’t read my profile too clearly the other day, but I actually specialized in Dream Imagery.” Arthur looks up at Eames then, forgetting about his fingers because Dream Imagery is a highly specialized field, with few notable authors, and he’s never met anyone from the field or had a chance to question them.

“I hadn’t known, no.”

“I only bring it up because your material, in your dissertation, actually briefly touches on a few of the more important aspects of dream imagery. You write about the relationship between literature, reality, and the dream space, about how literature influences a person’s sense of reality and, unconsciously, their dreams.”

“I did, yeah, but I thought dream imagery was more about, I dunno, actually making things within the dream. Dream psychology is a little closer to what my dissertation touches on, in my opinion, because I’m working with the effects of the psyche, aren’t I?”

“How the psyche interprets the world around it and adapts it to the dream, though, is much more physical than you’re thinking. When a person reads Poe, for instance, as your class is, most of his stories are darker in tone and so appear darker when manifested as an image in a reader’s mind. Imagery, isn’t it, when an author describes a scene using one of the five senses to influence tone and the reader’s perception? And if you take that effect and amplify it in the dream world, a dreamer could find himself amongst a storm. A dreamer, hypothetically, could remember the tone and feeling associated with Poe’s words, could recreate that as a physical manifestation within a dream. Dreaming takes the psyche and transforms it into something tangible, the way words cannot quite do, and so when you combine literature’s effects on the human mind with the raw possibilities of a dream, the imagery is rather important and intriguing. More so because you can use such things _intentionally_.”

Arthur tilts his head. “But if reality has a basis in literature, or literature has a basis in reality, would that ground the dream or make it less stable?”

“I’m not quite sure when you put it that way.” Eames shifts, leans forward, and Arthur finds that he has scooted toward the edge of his seat, his glass pushed to the side. “Look, have you ever used a PASIV before?”

Arthur shrugs. “Only a few times. The Dream Psychology department doesn’t like to loan theirs out, so everything I know about it is mostly from reading essays and books.”

Eames nods. “As I expected. When you’ve dreamed more, like me, you interpret things differently. I think about it all physically, despite the fact that neither dreams nor words are physical since they are primarily _ideas_ , because when I’m in a dream, it _feels_ real and tangible. My psyche transforms things that are _not_ corporeal until they _are_.”

Arthur nods, says, “Well, yes, that’s all proven in dream psychology, how the mind perceives things.”

“Imagery is different than perception, Arthur.” Eames finally leans back. “If you’d like, I could show you what I mean, or you can borrow my PASIV for a few days.”

“What?”

“It might be easier, since you’re not used to it, if I go down with you for the first or second runs, but after that I’ll leave you to explore your own hypothesis and test it out. Getting the experience in the dream world could give your paper an edge.”

“Why?” Arthur frowns slightly as he leans back. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t be grateful, Eames, but that’s a very expensive piece of machinery, not to mention a dangerous one. The use of a PASIV is highly risky to the untrained mind, and the regulations the government has put on it, even for academia, would make it very difficult for you to take me down.”

Eames shrugs. “Though our faculty specialize in the subjects they teach, they also generally contribute to research and work together to pioneer new fields. Dream Psychology and Dream Imagery both originated when people from different fields started thinking together, merging ideas and processes and experiences, until suddenly we all realized how much we were really missing. The design of the PASIV and the mechanical side of it were basically understood, but everything else--” he lifts his hands up “--it was just the beginning. And there are always new beginnings to be had. Those affiliated with our university have more freedom with the use of the PASIV. It wouldn’t be a problem.”

Arthur blinks, brow still furrowed, and Eames suddenly grins at him. “Anyway, Arthur, at this point it’s all still hypothetical, so you don’t have to worry. I’m only extending the offer, just so you’re aware it exists, and, well, maybe something will come of it, yes?”

Arthur doesn’t even have the focus to turn that into an innuendo, busy as his mind has suddenly become.

**break out of this two star town**

Mal forces him to do it, sick of the way he’s been writing and deleting parts of his dissertation obsessively. He knows she’s called Dom, that she’s thinking about maybe starting to date again, just for fun, and he needs something to distract him from how much of an asshole he’s been about that, thinking he could control her life, that he knew better. She’s forgiven him, mostly, but she doesn’t want him around her when he’s so distracted, and in the end he bows down to her will, and emails Eames.

_Eames_

_If you were serious about your offer to let me use your PASIV, I’d love to take you up on it. Email me a time when you’re free, because I’m going to need someone down there with me, and you promised to show me what you meant about ideas becoming physical in a more purposeful way than I’ve been thinking. Thank you again for doing this. I really appreciate the opportunity._

__

Arthur Levine Comparative Literature Lecturer and Ph.D. Candidate 

He waits for the entire weekend, cleaning the apartment and taking Mal out for lunch, trying not to check his phone too often. Still, he looks at least once an hour, and it’s not until Monday morning that Eames replies. Arthur kind of resents him for taking so long, because this is going to make such a difference in his paper, but he’s grateful and he knows being anything else is childish, is his nerves taking over.

Because, yes, he’s going to be going down into a dream with Eames, and that _already_ feels like a dream.

By the time he schedules a session for after his class on Tuesday, Arthur can’t focus on anything else. He reads and rereads parts of his dissertation, wondering if he’ll still have the same conclusions, still need the same evidence, wondering whether dreaming with Eames will change his entire perception, change his purpose.

He doesn’t want it to. He wants to be right purely on principle, but if his ideas are really unsound in practice, then he’ll have to change the whole thing. It’s not something he looks forward to, and it’s not something he expects, for the most part.

Arthur spends a few hours on the internet looking up sources in Dream Imagery, finding Eames’ name everywhere now that he’s looking. It makes his stomach clench every time, makes him sit straight in his chair as he reads, shoulders tense.

Eames is _smart_. It shouldn’t surprise him, not really, not with the way he and Eames were talking over dinner the other night, but it’s hard to reconcile the smiling man he’s been speaking to with the dry, academic voice that sounds so aggressively _sure_ of itself on paper. His topics vary wildly throughout, especially considering the order in which they were published, but Arthur reads each one chronologically, tries to piece them all together in a way that makes more sense to him. Perhaps Eames’ mind works in a different way, because Arthur ends up reordering them by topic, by the progression of ideas, and it’s... humbling, to say the least. Eames has churned out more research than any three professors at once could, and it makes him nervous, makes him wonder how he’ll ever even impress or interest Eames at all. His ideas are so _tame_ compared to Eames’, and, _god_ , but Eames was a _pioneer_ of his field.

He reads a few articles disputing Eames’ work, too, just for further research, comes across claims that fiercely discredit them, and ends up closing out of those windows with narrowed eyes, judging them for their blatant jealousy. Claiming to have come up with something before the original author loses its meaning without copyright, after all. And for those who were dismissed from their teaching positions after filing their dissertations on similar subjects, well, Arthur has no sympathy.

By the time they meet, Arthur is nervous, eager, and all too anxious. He just wants Eames to let him go down by himself for a few minutes to head it off, to let Arthur accustom himself to everything, to let him settle, but Eames opens the door to his hotel room with a grin, a towel in his hand.

“Afternoon, Arthur. Sorry we couldn’t meet this morning, but I had a meeting with the Dream Psych department, and I desperately needed a shower before I met up with you. Hope it wasn’t too much of a hassle?”

Arthur steps past him into the room, fidgeting with the strap of his bag and trying not to look at Eames or at Eames’ bed or at anything other than the floor, because Eames’ hair is damp and his shirt is sticking to his lower back like his skin is still slightly wet, and, _goddamn_ , he just got out of the shower and all Arthur remembers now is that Eames has a mouth that makes Arthur want to do everything wrong in the world.

He’s so flustered that he nearly jumps out of his skin when Eames puts his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, guiding him further into the room. “Easy there. We’ll take it slow. Only thirty minutes down in the dream for the first try, yeah? We’ll work up to it.”

“Yeah, no, that’s fine. Uh, where do you...” Arthur drops his bag on the floor by the tv.

“Well, unless you’d like to lie on the floor, take a seat there.” Arthur sits in the chair by the bed, watches as Eames pulls a silver case out of the closet, as he sets it on the bed and opens it.

There are cords and vials and buttons and god but Arthur has no idea what he’s doing and he’s only ever dreamed with a PASIV three times before, and those had been--those had been some of the most self-revealing moments of his life, and now he’s going to share that experience with Eames, who is evaluating him for a teaching position and reading his dissertation and who is far, far too attractive for Arthur to keep that to himself.

His palms are sweaty. He hasn’t felt this nervous since he was opening up the envelope letting him know whether he’d earned the teaching position.

Eames talks him through setting the machine up, and Arthur is envious that Eames deals with this all the time, that he can afford to keep this machine and know it inside-out, that his hands are steady and strong as he swabs Arthur’s wrist and finds a good vein. He doesn’t comment on Arthur’s pulse jumping beneath his fingers, doesn’t ask whether it’s from nerves.

Arthur doesn’t volunteer that he’s nervous now for more than one reason as Eames slides the needle into his wrist.

When Eames presses the plunger after they’re both settled in, Arthur closes his eyes, and wakes up in an entirely different world.

**if you can’t hold on**

At first glance, Arthur is alone in what seems to be a classroom, looking out over the quad of some school that just brushes the edges of familiar, but when he tries to focus on it, tries to identify the place, it makes his head ache, makes the view blur and squeeze like something is pinching it together on purpose. He swallows and turns around, startled to see Eames slipping in through the door. His eyebrows are raised.

“Wanted the alone time, I suppose?”

“I thought you said you were coming down at the same time I was?” Arthur asks, and if his voice is sharper than usual, it might be fear. His heart is beating too fast.

“Easy, Arthur, I was. You bunked me down the hall, apparently. Or, well, not consciously, obviously.”

Arthur eyes him suspiciously and Eames sits on the top of a desk, easy and open. “Look, you’ve only dreamed a few times, right? You’re uncomfortable with it. You know how the psyche takes cues and transforms them, and you’re wary having me here to witness it. I understand that, better than you think. But what you don’t understand, Arthur, is that rather than letting your subconscious mind take the lead down here, _you_ can actually _control_ aspects of the dream. Which is where your research comes in.”

Arthur frowns, takes a step forward to listen better. “But, you can’t control your subconscious, Eames. It’s not... it’s _sub_ , under, outside of control.”

“Not traditionally, no. But, down here--you can. Certain aspects at least. Look, what do you think you, actively, can change in a dream?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur says, because he doesn’t. He doesn’t know much about lucid dreaming, just how the consciousness should interact with it, how to analyze it. He can’t _interact_ with it so far as changing it would require. It’s all just a reflection of his own person, embodied in the physical environment created by the PASIV. It’s a manifestation of his psyche.

He wonders what this dream says about him.

Eames shrugs. “Exactly. That’s precisely what we don’t know. However, if we can take cues from reality, or memories, or literature, even, if we can absorb them into our consciousness, how would they manifest down here? Could we change ourselves to reflect them?”

“How?” Arthur asks, because by this point he’s catching on, can see that Eames is leading him towards some idea. “Show me.”

Eames grins, takes a compact out of his pocket. “Really, Arthur, you can be so demanding,” he says, glancing down at it, and when Arthur blinks, he’s staring at Mal.

“I--what?”

“You see, Arthur?”

“Mal?”

She shakes her head, smiling, and suddenly Arthur can see Eames in her, can see it in her posture and smile and just--Eames is back on the desk entirely, hands raised in defence. “It’s harder to hold onto real people, people whose heads’ I’m not inside of. I can do literary characters better, actually. I started with them.”

“Started what?”

He’s nearly furious, eyes wide and--he doesn’t know if he’s angry that Eames is using Mal to teach him, or just that Arthur clearly _does not understand_.

Eames seems to be making himself as insignificant as possible, which is hard because he’s larger than Arthur, wider, stronger, and he knows so much _more_. “I call it Forging. It’s something I picked up on recently, that I’ve been working on for about a year. I don’t fully understand it--it’s more instinct than process. But, in theory, I can take on the appearance of another person. I can change my appearance in a dream, or change the scenery, or change the mood, by responding to stimuli or willing it to be so. You can _design_ a dream.”

“How do my ideas fit into all of this?” Arthur demands, and his arms are folded across his chest, he’s standing in a corner near the window, and there’s a persistent buzzing in his head. It’s starting to make him sick.

“Your connection to literature gives you a vantage point from that of a writer or someone who analyzes writing all the time. You can pick apart a text for different undertones, can pick apart what the author meant and how certain words or scenes add a theme or weight to a story. It’s the same for dreams--small little influences that can change the entire dream, can change the way a person sees it. It’s all down to perception, as you were saying, but if you can grasp that and _use_ it or _change_ it, the dream would respond. It’s like _writing_ a dream out.”

“So you’re saying if I go into a dream thinking of, I don’t know, _The Purloined Letter_ , I’ll find myself immersed in it, like a movie?”

“No, not exactly.” Eames shrugs. “I think it has more to do with tone than anything else. If you were consciously thinking of that story when you went down, and you applied it to the dream, I feel like it would manifest in the _feeling_ of the dream. If an author can twist things in a story, won’t the mind twist them when given an outlet?”

“What about the forging?”

“At first, like I said, it was just literary characters, people whose minds I knew perfectly, so well that I could predict how they’d react to something, how they’d stand or talk. So I tried coming down here to replicate it, tried practicing, and it was working, sporadically. I figured from then on that, if I knew something well enough, the dream could help me to inhabit the idea. It would rely on the perception of others, since I don’t see myself as others might, but if I could do that, it changes the ideas we’ve had about what the conscious, and unconscious, and subconscious minds are capable of doing down here.”

Arthur tilts his head, arms falling to his sides. “So you can control physical appearance. What about constructing the... the setting? Clothing? Things like that.”

Eames grins at him, smiles, and when he opens his mouth--

**hold on**

\--they’re back in the hotel room and Arthur’s heart is still pounding and the needle in his skin looks so unassuming but Eames is still smiling, looks far more excited than he has yet. “That’s precisely what I’m wondering. What can we use to change those? _Can_ we change those? _Why_ can we, or can’t we? I’m interested in your research because literature is similar. Everyone reads things differently, changes the words to match their perception, and if you can change a dream to match your perception, then--the possibilities are endless. If multiple people can read the same story and come out with different conclusions, imagine those people dreaming together, imagine what it could be like if they all focused on trying to shift one small thing in a dream.”

“But what would you _use_ it for?” Arthur asks, frowning. “What good is this if we figure it out, if anyone figures it out?”

Eames shrugs. “What good is the PASIV anyway?”

“It helps with mental disorders and understanding the mind,” Arthur points out, pulling the needle out and holding it awkwardly; a dot of blood pulls on the surface of his skin and he presses his fingers over it. Eames takes the line from him, coiling it back in the case after taking the needle off the cord. “If someone could consciously control their mind in a dream, it would help to dispel disorders and things of that nature. It could be used to hide things, Eames.”

“Perhaps this can help us, though,” Eames says. “All I want to do is figure it out. I want to understand better how the mind changes things, why the mind does it, what we can learn from it.”

Arthur can see why, because he keeps seeing Mal-not-Mal-but-Eames in his mind’s eye, keeps noticing the little faults he hadn’t seen at first glance, and now he wonders how he saw Mal in that woman at all, how he perceived that to be his sister. He’d been so sure in the dream, confused and unsettled but _sure_.

“Think about it, won’t you?” Eames asks, closing the PASIV case. “I can see you probably need a while to sort that out, and I’m headed out of town tonight, actually.”

Arthur looks up at him then, and he feels like he doesn’t understand anything, feels like he’s been left reeling by all that Eames has shown him since he arrived, all that he’s said and suggested. He doesn’t want Eames to go. He wants Eames to sit down and explain it, wants Eames to keep Arthur up past four am discussing it, wants Eames to push him against the pillows and tell him to drop it until tomorrow and just sleep for a while. He wants to spend every minute of his time figuring this out, with Eames.

“Oh,” he says. “What time are you leaving?”

“My flight leaves at eleven,” Eames answers, shrugging. “I’ve got to be in Atlanta tomorrow morning.”

“Business meeting?”

“Of course.” Eames looks at him from the corners of his eyes as he turns away. “What other kind of meeting could it be?”

“Pleasure.” Arthur swallows, tries to convince himself to get up and leave, to thank Eames for the exposure, but all he can think about is Eames’ mouth, his still-damp hair, the way he wants to push his hands up under Eames’ shirt and drag his nails down his back harshly.

Eames turns back to him, head tilted consideringly. “What are you implying, Arthur?”

“Did you ever decide if Professor Cobb was right in calling me attractive?”

Arthur doesn’t move as Eames’ lips pull up into a sly smile, doesn’t move when Eames takes a step back toward him. “I did come to a conclusion, yes.”

“And was his hypothesis correct, or should he rework it?”

“Oh, no, I should think he’s on the right track. I wouldn’t recommend he do an up-close study--objectivity and all--but his claims weren’t false.”

“Hmm, I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear that,” Arthur says, and Eames is so close now, so very close, close enough for Arthur to reach out and touch, close enough that Arthur can smell his shampoo and detergent and the mint on his breath, close enough for Eames to close the gap between them and press his mouth to Arthur’s pulse point.

It’s a blur from there.

Arthur remembers dragging his nails up Eames’ back as he rids him of his shirt, remembers finding the tattoos with his tongue while working Eames’ belt open, remembers laughing at the way Eames bounces back on the bed when Arthur shoves him. He thinks he strips off at the edge of the bed, Eames’ eyes hot on him, burning across his skin with something like reverence until Arthur’s sitting on his thighs, hands braced on his hips as he swallows Eames’ cock down easily.

He remembers warm skin against his, the movement of muscle under him, the way Eames had flipped them with his legs until he was over Arthur, settled in enough to work him open with slick fingers and his tongue, to press in against him from behind and push and pull and take until Arthur shudders through his orgasm, loud and unashamed and helplessly turned on by the entire situation, the wrongness of it, the perfection of Eames’ body working into his as Eames’ fucks him through his own orgasm.

And Arthur remembers falling asleep, remembers waking up in the middle of the night to a dark hotel room, tangled in sheets that are cold and empty.

**is there room for one more sun**

Arthur can’t stop thinking about the experience with Eames in the PASIV. He doesn’t tell anyone what it was they talked about, what Eames showed him, doesn’t ask all the questions he has.

Mal regards him oddly when he gets home that night and burns the rice on the stove because he’s been staring at her, sitting along the counter and chatting amiably with him in between texting someone--he strongly suspects it’s Dom--on her phone. He just has to reassure himself that she is real, that she’s herself, that he’s _awake_. He hadn’t been this disoriented the last few times he’d ever dreamed lucidly.

He can’t even borrow the PASIV from the Dream Psych department because he’s a temporary professor of _literature_ , and he has no excuse whatsoever for being interested in dreaming. It’s a strictly guarded thing, since it can technically be addicting. The drug they’re using, Somnasynthetic, makes their test patients want more, and so getting clearance to the PASIV is more difficult than it has any right to be for someone whose research delves, even slightly, into the depths of the dreaming mind.

In the end, it’s two months after Eames leaves before Arthur finally gets a chance, and it all comes down to Dominic Cobb.

**you’re gonna bring yourself down**

In all the time since Eames took him down into the dream, Arthur has been theorizing, has been distracted from his classes and from Mal’s slow evolution to dating Dom--he hadn’t even noticed the Storm figurine in Mal’s bedroom, hadn’t commented _once_ until five weeks after it appeared there. She’d laughed in his face.

But he’s had other things on his mind. His dissertation is a mess of notes, of theories, and he has no way of testing them. He needs more experience with the PASIV, needs more time to apply his hypotheses.

Now that Dom is over at least once a week--because Arthur had given in, had needed to vet him out, no matter what Mal said--Arthur can ask him questions, can get some of the information he can’t understand explained to him. And Dom does explain it. Despite the fact that he’s generally droll and gets excited about cartoons, Dom is intelligent and complex, dangerously ambitious and engaged in the human mind and dreams themselves. He answers all of Arthur’s questions as best he can, debates with Arthur when he asks a question with no true answer, and, between this and his homemade cinnamon rolls, Arthur starts to respect him.

Mal is disgruntled by that.

“But, if you can--”

“You _can’t_ , Arthur, that’s the point.” Dom yawns and reaches out for the coffee in front of him. Mal drapes herself around him to kiss his temple in goodbye, smacking the back of Arthur’s head on the way out. He gives her the finger, foiled by the door closing behind her, and turns back to Dom.

“Why?” he demands, and maybe he’s been up all night, maybe this is his third cup of coffee in five hours, but he needs to know.

Not for the first time, he curses Eames inside his head. Fucking asshole, getting him invested and then leaving.

Arthur sometimes wonders, when he’s trying and failing to fall asleep at night, what Eames was really trying to recruit him for, why Eames put him onto this path, if it was a hint that might help him get hired or something. He’s not sure it was a good thing at all.

“It’s not something that’s possible, Arthur. Look, do you need me to prove it to you? Why does it matter?”

“Would you prove it to me?” Arthur asks, standing up straight again and pushing his hair back off his forehead. He’s aware of precisely how obsessive he looks, but he doesn’t care, not enough to do anything about it. “I need you to, Dom. These are ideas that could make my working hypothesis for my dissertation obsolete, or buck it up until it’s an entirely new animal, and I just need to know.”

Dom looks him over and Arthur--well, Arthur knows he thinks it’s a bad idea, and he knows Dom is weighing this seriously, considering how it would go in either scenario. And maybe it’s that urge for Arthur to approve of him for Mal, maybe he just sees that Arthur can’t give up, but he sighs and looks back down at his coffee. “Fine, I’ll show you. Don’t make me regret this.”

**seventeen tracks and i’ve had it with this game**

In the end, Dom doesn’t regret it.

Arthur does.

**i’ve got potential, a rushin’, a rushin’ around**

The first dream Arthur goes down into with Cobb watching over him is a test run, a dry run. He’s not actively thinking about anything, not trying to shape the world in the dream or influence it in any way. He simply closes his eyes in the psych department and opens them in a quiet forest, all muted sunlight and dappled shadows and trees so tall it hurts his neck to look up at them. Arthur blinks, stares around him and starts to walk down one of the paths, wishes the dream had equipped him with more comfortable clothes and shoes. The blisters feel real enough, he decides when he comes across a stream.

There’s a group of people upstream, sitting with their feet in a pool at the base of a small waterfall, but whenever Arthur tries to distinguish their features they blur, or his glance strays to the side. He can’t look at them straight on and it starts to agitate him, starts taking a toll that the blisters on his feet and sweat in his hairline haven’t.

“Hey, where are we?” he yells, trying to move closer.

One of the figures gets up, pulls another to their feet, and they start walking away, leaving him alone. When he stops, they stop, and when he tries to reach them, they’re gone.

Arthur wakes up with his heart in his throat, and he doesn’t know why.

**this river is wild**

Arthur goes down again after taking a quick lunch with Dom and going over the dream in detail. Some aspects are fuzzy--Dom assures him that with practice and exposure to the PASIV that fuzziness should dissipate--but Arthur remembers the blank faces, remembers the distance.

“The people you saw in the dream are what we call projections of your consciousness. That there were so few of them indicate that your consciousness wasn’t broken up too greatly.”

“If I were to stay in the dream longer, would there be more? Does my conscience fracture the longer I’m down there?”

“I’m not sure,” Dom says, picking at a piece of salad that’s fallen into his lap. “Damn. Uh, it could be that. I wasn't down there with you, and I won’t be the next time. You should start keeping a record, though, like a dream diary. I don’t want you trying to manipulate anything yet--I still don’t believe that you _can_ \--but this at least will act like a therapy session with yourself. You’ll be learning things about yourself that you might not have known and at the same time you’ll be learning about the PASIV, seeing how the machine interprets you as an individual--or, in a way, how _you_ interpret yourself.”

“It’s faulty though, isn’t it?”

Dom shrugs and sighs down at his food, pushes it aside to reach for the half of his sandwich Arthur doesn’t plan to eat. It should disturb him that eating together has become habitual enough for them to be comfortable with that, and Arthur echoes his sigh.

“Yeah. Great.”

**those black-eyed ladies won’t say they’re sorry**

Arthur’s back at the river again. This time he’s dressed in khaki shorts and a windbeater, weathered boots on his feet like he’s worn them in again and again, scuffed and muddied and practically ready for replacement. They’re comfortable, but he looks at them with suspicion, wonders they they appeared this time, if the PASIV is learning him--or, if Dom is to be believed, if he’s learning and predicting himself. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, really, but then so far he hasn’t been expecting it to.

What makes less sense is the group of people waiting for him at the top of a trailhead. He looks at the path up the side of the waterfall, the steep, wet rock, and looks back to their brightly colored jackets above him, the way they’re peering down over a ledge to see him.

“Hey!” Arthur yells, waving up at them. One actually waves back, and he blinks, sighs. “Fuck.”

He’s glad Dom added an extra hour to his time down here because that hike is going to take him at least two hours if he moves fast.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how long it would take him. The path gets harder as he climbs, switches back where he didn’t think it had from the ground, and he loses sight of them entirely when he comes to a dead end in the trail. “What the fuck.”

He frowns, looks down over the edge of the path at the pool below him. Dom had said if anything happened in a dream for whatever reason he’d just wake up, but Arthur isn’t really willing to test that theory. He sighs again, braces his hand against the rock next to him and crouches down, lets his feet dangle over the edge when he sits.

“Observation: the projections first avoided me. This time, the dream is changing to block my path. Fucking useful. This has nothing to do with my thesis,” he says aloud, picking up a handful of loose stones and dropping them over the edge one at a time. He thinks about the ripples they’ll send out in the pond below being cancelled out by the rushing waterfall’s impact upon the water, thinks about his research in comparison to his goal.

By the time the clock runs down, he’s staring up at the sun and thinking about how he can change the equation.

**i did my best to notice**

“When I go down into the dream, the projections are hard to get to. They hold themselves apart from me, look down on me, and the dream itself plays an active role in keeping us apart. It’s not just their prerogative that separates us; it’s literally the changing landscape of the dream as well.” Arthur tosses the ball back up at the ceiling, catches it, and Dom hums.

“Are you saying the dream is interacting with you?”

“It’s responding to me, definitely, but I’m not sure what it responds _to_. The projections in the first dream only populated the landscape after a while on my own, which led me to believe the dream was getting used to me or spending the first moments learning enough about me to correctly portray bits of my consciousness. They grew agitated when I did, responded to my responding to them, maybe?” Arthur frowns, throws the ball back up and misses it when it comes back down. “Is that normal?”

“Normal enough,” Dom says, reaching down under his chair to grab the ball. “Did you steal this from my desk?”

Arthur levels him with a look that’s mostly eyebrows. “Dom, that’s a stress ball painted to look like a koala. I don’t even want to know why you have it, let alone why you’re offended I was throwing it.”

“It’s special!”

“Right, yeah. So if my projections respond to the same stimuli I do, indirectly, could I force them to respond in a certain way, train _myself_ to dream in a certain mindset wherein the projections would reflect it?”

“Still has nothing to do with your thesis,” Dom says, tossing the ball up toward the ceiling and watching mournfully as it bounces away from him to roll into the corner. He swivels back toward Arthur in his chair, steepling his fingers over his lap and tilting his head. “However, it is an interesting theory. It’s a start, at least, for manipulating the dreams, even though still I’m not certain it’s a healthy goal at all.”

“Who knows?” Arthur says, thinking of Eames grinning at him from that desk, thinking of Eames’ Mal. “But research for the sake of research often yields surprising results.”

“You’re scheduled to present your dissertation in June,” Dom points out. “You have two months until you have to have it finished and edited, Arthur. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Arthur breathes in through his nose, feels his eyebrows angle down. “No, but I’m not going to just stop now. I have questions and I want answers, and if I’m no closer to connecting it to my thesis in a month, I’ll give up and focus on my original points.”

Dom’s still frowning right up until the point his decrepit phone lights up with an incoming text from Mal and Arthur leaves him to it.

**lift me up on my own**

Arthur goes into the dream and promptly sits down on the ground, closes his eyes and thinks about Mal, thinks about happiness and calmness and even starts going through a round of yoga poses, breathing calm and deep until he starts thinking of his students, thinks of Ariadne and her smile and her questions, how willing he is to help her, eager to see what she’s come up with, and when he opens his eyes he’s not in the forest anymore.

He’s in a classroom and there are students facing him, curiosity in their gazes. His heart jumps and he sees a few of them shift in their seats nervously.

“Okay,” he says, breathes in deep and forces himself into his headspace. “Okay. How are you all today?”

A few of the projections nod, make so-so movements with their hands and half-smile. He grins back, leans back against the table. It’s not either of his classrooms, not really, slightly darker and less spacious, a little less populated, even, and he avoids looking directly at the ceiling where it seems to be moving. “So, who did their assignment?” he asks, hoping against hope it’s the right thing, the right way to play this.

One of the projections avoids his eyes but the others mumble affirmatives under their breaths, share looks between themselves. Some reach down for the bags at their feet and pull out papers, essays. His heart is still beating too fast, but maybe it’s normal for the dream, maybe it’s the Somnasynthetic, so he ignores it, lets it fade from his attention.

“Please pass your papers to the front of your rows,” he instructs, smiling. “Who wants to start the discussion? What topic did you choose?” he asks a random projection, gesturing at her.

She blinks, eyes wide and startled, but sighs, reaching back to collect the papers from the boy behind her. “I wrote on the relationship a projection has to the dreamer,” she says. “I had more questions than I had answers, though.”

“Questions are a good way to start this discussion,” Arthur says encouragingly. “They’re a great jumping off point. Which was the most pressing?”

“I wanted to know why the projections in a dream would reflect the dreamer’s mindset. The only ideas I could come up with pointed to a connection between the conscious and subconscious minds. I started delving into the psychoanalytic theories, but... this is a literature based class and they don’t have a place here.” She shrugs.

“No, but there are different approaches to literature, and the psychoanalytic approach is one commonly used by critics,” Arthur points out, hopping up to sit on the table at the front of the room and crossing his ankles. “If we can look at literature with a certain viewpoint, like we’re applying a lens, then we can look at the rest of life and even dreaming with that same lens, can’t we?”

Another projection raises his hand and Arthur thinks about the time he has left in the dream, doesn’t know when it will end. God, but this is so much _easier_ now.

“Okay, but if she’s right and we look at this from, I don’t know, a Lacanian viewpoint--well, look, Žižek reads Lacan in a different way than we might, right? But he says that fantasy becomes inaccessible to the subject--either the dreamer or the projections, in our case--and that the inaccessibility itself makes the subject ‘empty.’ If we ‘fill’ that subject though, give it a means of fulfilling a fantasy--the dream itself, perhaps--it implies the subject can be filled and become active.”

“So, in this case, the projections are empty, but as the subject--the dreamer, whom the projections reflect--realizes his fantasies within the dreamspace, the projections fill themselves, so to speak, and gain their own agency?” Arthur has never appreciated extracurricular undergrad courses more in his life. He’ll have to write a flattering review for his old professor.

“Yeah, that sounds plausible, doesn’t it?” The projection scratches the back of his head, looks around at his classmates as they nod and tilt their heads thoughtfully.

“I suppose,” one says from the middle of the classroom. “But that only gives the projections agency. What about the dreamer? How does the dreamer himself achieve agency within a dream wherein he supposedly has no means of shaping it? Nobody understands the PASIV that well, you know?”

Arthur opens his mouth to respond, to ask her to extrapolate, and wakes up.

**last time i said i was in control**

“They had a discussion with me,” he says, blinking at the bright light above him as Dom pulls the needle from his wrist. “Dom, my projections talked with me, answered my own questions.”

Dom looks suspicious as he pulls away, handing Arthur a piece of gauze for his wrist. “How?”

“I... I thought about my students, when I went down in the dream, and when I looked up properly, the projections _were_ my students--not, like, _my_ students, but mine, you know? And when I realized that, when I inhabited the position of knowledge, they were the ones asking questions and answering each other with barely any input from me, even though... all their thoughts are from me? Is that right?”

“Arthur, what you’re describing is...” Dom stops, eyebrows drawing down in a way that highlights the lines at the corners of his eyes. “If this is true, if you manipulated the projections into interacting with you as if they’re real, if you controlled their behavior... This isn’t what you meant to find, but we should continue down this line anyway, see if we can connect it to your dissertation at a later point. Could I accompany you next time?”

“Yeah, sure, but--Dom, I _manipulated my projections,_ ” Arthur breathes. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah--yeah, holy shit is about right, Arthur.”

**nowhere else to run**

Mal gets home to them lounging on the couch with papers and graphs and diagrams spread out between them. Dom’s dealing with the technical side of shit, trying to figure out if it was something about the PASIV itself, but Arthur’s got research spread out from various different scholars.

He’s reading another of Eames’ essays, trying to find something in it that he’s missed the last two read-throughs, when she tosses her scarf over his head. “Can you stop?”

“What?” he says, pulling it off to drop on the floor behind the couch.

She taps her foot, looking down at him, and lifts her eyebrows. “You’re monopolizing my boyfriend.”

Dom looks up, then, blinking owlishly behind gold-framed glasses, and Arthur rolls his eyes, stretching his feet out to the other end of the couch and pushing Dom to the edge. “I am not monopolizing him. I’m merely consulting him, Mal. You’re the one who encouraged me to give him a chance.”

“You weren’t going to give me a chance before?” Dom asks, finally breaking into the conversation.

“That’s all in the past, Dom, don’t worry about it,” Arthur says vaguely, waving one of the papers at him before he turns back to it. “Mal, can you bring us coffee?”

“No.”

She’s gone a moment later, back with her own mug as she settles in the armchair across the room and turns the tv on, staring as she turns it up. He rolls his eyes, mutters under his breath about younger sisters getting in the way, and finally loses Dom to the call of caffeine and his girlfriend.

At this point, even _Dom_ has a better grasp on life than Arthur does.

That stings just a bit. He decides to ignore it and continue on.

The only thing about Eames’ essays that still bothers Arthur is the fact that, after reading them again and again and again, after highlighting them and annotating them and comparing them to other sources, Arthur still gets trapped in them, searching for the depth that was evident in Eames’ conversations and... not finding it. There’s nothing about Forging, nothing about what they talked of. His papers are flat, and while some of the ideas are revolutionary, Arthur wishes Eames had started writing at a different point, led in better than he really has.

“Why couldn’t he have just started off the end of the last essay?” Arthur growls, throwing the essay onto the stack on the floor. “This is useless. Nobody’s even come close to this.”

Mal looks over at him, and he realizes she’s alone now, that Dom’s probably gone home. Her tights have a run in them, three of her toes sticking out of a hole in the bottom so he can see the dark red they’re painted. “Are you back with us now?”

“Shit, did Dom leave?”

“Is that all that matters?” She frowns, crossing her legs over the arm of the chair and settling in. Her empty coffee mug sits on the floor, abandoned, and he sighs.

“No, it’s--I didn’t even notice or say good bye,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry I’m being so horrible.”

“You’re being _academic_ ,” she says, rolling her eyes. “It is quite terrible, hmm? I’m glad you realize.”

“I’m like Chillingsworth,” Arthur says numbly, and starts laughing. “Oh, god, Danny was right about me. I’m going to develop a hump on my back.”

Mal purses her lips, pulls a few bobby pins out of her hair to let pieces fall around her face. She holds them in her mouth while she pins them back up, eyes judging him, but doesn’t speak until she can see properly again. “Perhaps you should stop all of this. You’re obsessed, Arthur.”

“Mal, Eames asked me to--”

“Eames did not ask you to do this,” Mal snaps. “Eames proposed an idea that you caught onto, hook, line, and sinker. You’ve been underwater for months, Arthur, and it’s nowhere near healthy. Let it go. Write your original thesis. This shit has nothing to do with literature, does it?”

In a sense, Arthur can admit she’s right, but all he remembers is that feverish confusion he’d woken into out of the first dream with Eames, and he won’t let it go, can’t imagine how to go about it.

“No, but--Mal, I want to know, now. This won’t just go away if I stop researching. I’m still going to be thinking about it.”

Mal sighs, slips out of the armchair to fall on the couch next to him, over his legs. He hadn’t realized he was cold, but she feels startlingly warm. “Arthur, look. I know you liked Eames, but you don’t have to finish this just to impress him. He’s gone, he left, he never even properly talked about the position he was vetting you for. I’m not saying I disliked him, but maybe--maybe he was pulling your leg. Maybe he meant to distract you from his leaving.”

“Bullshit.”

She sighs, rests her head on the back of the couch, dark eyes staring up at the ceiling. “If you say so.”

**what do you care**

Arthur’s projections react badly when Dom comes down with him. He might be too eager, might be too hopeful, because they’re all over Dom the minute the classroom comes into focus, shooting off question after question and yelling over each other and there are more of them than Arthur’s ever seen. He’s almost embarrassed, because _he_ certainly doesn’t feel they way they do about Dom, who looks like he wants to walk out the window.

“Hey, settle down!” The projections look at him as if he’s set someone on fire, but they shut up, fall back in their chairs with something like stunned fear on their faces, exactly as his real students would. “Thank you. Now, this is the guest-lecturer I was talking about last class, Dom Cobb. He’s a professor of Dream Psychology, and though this class also focuses on Dream _Imagery_ , we have a strong basis in psychology and literature, as you well know, and if you all would shut up and treat him appropriately, then maybe we can learn something today that will help you with your final papers.”

Dom’s looking at him like he has no idea how to react, like Arthur really _has_ thrown him out the window. “I, er... hi, everyone.”

The class mutters quiet hellos, glancing at Arthur as they do.

“What do I do?” Dom hisses quietly, still trying to smile. Arthur wishes he’d stop.

“Just... talk about what you do, ask if they have questions, and I’ll jump in when it seems fitting.” Arthur leans back against the table, nods for Dom to take over, and by the time they’ve emerged from the dream, Dom seems like he might need to go to the hospital for a concussion.

**i’m sick of all my judges**

After the discussion on giving the projections agency once the dreamer has achieved agency, Arthur begins to think he already has the ability to change the dream, because he _has_ been. He’s manipulated his projections into acting in a way he understands, and his projections have grasped onto their role like real students, asking their own--his own?--questions. His classroom has become a lecture hall, but is no less quiet, no less opinionated and curious.

Nor is Arthur.

“So where does that leave us in practice?” he asks, circling three of the concepts on the whiteboard and turning back to the class. “When we combine these elements?”

“Well, technically it adds up to a few different things,” one of the kids says. He shifts in his seat, leans forward and glances down at his notebook. “Imagery, emotional response, and interpretation come into play in many different fields, like film and literature. You need to have an environment, even if it’s a blank one or a _lack_ of environment, in order to frame a narrative. The emotional state drives the development of plot and relationships to both others and the environment set up, sometimes influencing said environment. And then interpretation--I mean, everyone sees it differently, but in order to interact with a text or movie or--anything, really, you need to be able to interpret it, to break it apart and understand it.”

“Could the same be said of dreams?”

“Of course, yeah, I don’t see why it can’t.”

“So, going back to our discussion on the agency of a dreamer and the agency of projections, would the combination provided here--imagery, emotional response, and interpretation--allow a dreamer to ‘fill’ the subject of the dream?”

The class breaks out muttering as the projections process, and Arthur feels his heartbeat speed up, feels how icy his hands are when he presses them against his thighs.

He’s found the way to link this to his dissertation.

**nobody ever had a dream around here**

Dom insists on taking Arthur and Mal out to dinner when Arthur tells him of his breakthrough, and they end up at some Italian restaurant Arthur’s never heard of, laughing over red wines and stealing bites from each other’s plates when the wait staff isn’t looking.

“I’m very pleased,” Mal says, leaning back in her seat, hand resting on Dom’s on the table top. “I was beginning to think I’d lose you entirely.”

Arthur grins, shakes his head. “I just had to get past that mental block. It was only six weeks, Mal.”

“Non, it was terrible,” she argues, kicking him under the table; Dom stifles a laugh. “Don’t ever write another paper while you’re living with me again. I think I lost track of you one morning under all the essays on the couch. I had no idea how to tell Mom you’d turned into a paper zombie.”

Dom’s outright laughing now, smiling so wide Arthur might think it was _Dom_ who made the connection, Dom who went down just this morning and applied everything, who woke up in the dream of _his own making_ , but Arthur still vividly remembers the tropical blooms around him, the scent of hibiscus and ocean in the air, the roughness of lava rock on his fingers and knees, and the abrupt switch when he closed his eyes and reopened them in a city that reminded him too much of a false Venice.

“What sounds do paper zombies make?” Dom asks. “Because, you know, maybe it’d be like--”

“No comic book references at the dinner table!” Arthur interrupts, leaning forward quickly to press his hand over Dom’s face, decorum be damned. “Rule thirteen, Dom!”

“We’re not at your apartment! And I wasn’t even going to talk about comic books!”

“Of course, darling, I believe you,” Mal says complacently, patting his hand.

Dom sighs, slouches before a waiter appears at his elbow to top off his glass. “Yes, please,” he says, flushing a bit and sitting up again. “Jesus, they’re like shadows,” he mutters once the guy is gone. “When do you present your dissertation, Arthur?”

“Three weeks,” he says, leaning back in his chair with his wine as they wait for dessert. “I have to speed through the write up, but it’s only adding on to what I had before. Luckily the first part is edited and ready to go, and I’m meeting with Saito tomorrow to discussion the additional material. I’ve got all my notes in that notebook you made me start keeping in my office, plus typed up on my laptop now, so I just need to set my nose to the grindstone. I can talk the material back and forth by now, but once it’s on paper, that’ll be it.”

“I’m proud of you, Arthur. I didn’t think what you were proposing was possible at first,” Dom admits. “I’m glad I got to help you.”

“Yeah. I’m glad Mal decided to give you a chance. I wouldn’t have had any of this if she hadn’t,” Arthur says, laughing as Mal mutters, “Oh, so _now_ you’re happy.”

“I’m just worried about the ramifications of publishing,” Arthur admits when they’re readying themselves to leave. “I hope this isn’t a mistake.”

**is this real or just a dream**

Saito approves the change in his dissertation, urges Arthur to write quickly and edit slowly, and by the time he’s slotted to present, Arthur feels more confident than he ever thought possible. This is information he _knows_ , information he _found_. He can control dreams in a PASIV, him, Arthur Levine, temporary professor of literature.

The semester ended a week ago. Ariadne had searched him out to get her grade, hugged him shyly and asked if he’d be staying on next semester. He’d told her yes, told her that was his initial plan but to keep in contact via email if she wanted to, told her he might have another offer by the end of the summer, and he only hopes that’s true.

Arthur never did hear back from Eames, though, not after he left, and he doesn’t know how to feel about that as he walks up the steps in the hall toward the room he’s presenting in. Perhaps after this Eames might contact him, congratulate him on his research.

Maybe if Eames wasn’t interested in the research, he might still be interested in Arthur, or vice versa.

The room is chilly when he walks in, brightly lit, and he smiles nervously at Saito where he’s sitting on one end of the panel. Saito inclines his head, holds his hand out for the papers Arthur needs to share with the committee as they’d discussed on Monday. “Thank you, Arthur.”

Arthur swallows, walks down to the chair at the center of the room. “Hello, I’m Arthur Levine, and I’m defending my dissertation, _The Relativity of Dreaming with Intention: Literature and the Dream.”_

He breathes in shakily, nods to himself, and starts to talk, talks until Saito nods his head and then he guides them through, pulls until he’s reached the end and they’re turning to share wordless commentary.

They ask him to leave after his presentation so they can deliberate, and--well, Arthur’s been to a few other dissertation defenses, and that hasn’t happened in any of them. He feels jittery, amped up, but he’s confident, he really is. This isn’t something that’s been done before, something they can argue away.

A scribe runs out to grab him twenty minutes later from the wall he’s sitting against, but she won’t say anything about it, just smiles at him nervously and asks him to follow her back in, standing aside and waving him through before closing the door behind him.

“Professor Levine, the panel needs a word, if you please.”

Arthur pauses, hovers, sits back in the seat he’d vacated an hour ago as he looks up at the three people judging his dissertation. “Yes?”

Professor Saito leans back, frowning, and Browning leans forward. “While impressive, it has come to our attention that your dissertation expands on ideas which are not primarily your own. Your thesis is supportive to another, rather than explicit in its own cause, and Professor Fischer and I feel that this does not live up to the two years you’ve spent writing it.”

Arthur stares, looks at Saito to see him shaking his head. “What?”

“You seem to be unaware, Mr. Levine, of the research published by Harold Eames earlier this week. I’ll skip over the minute details, but much of what you’ve presented today echoes his work. Very few points are original in their content, which, as you might understand, is troubling to the board. We cannot, in good conscience, give you a degree in this field when your work is subpar and, perhaps, not your work at all.”

“I’ve been working on this for two years!” Arthur’s heart beats wildly in his chest, and he feels like the walls are closing in on him, feels his vision narrow. “Ask Professor Saito! He has detailed records of our meetings, of helping me with my dissertation. And Eames! I know Eames! You can call him, contact him somehow, and he’ll tell you that it was my work all along. This is a misunderstanding, and you _can’t_ deny me this.”

“Plagiarists, Mr. Levine, do not get demands.” Browning shrugs, sits back in his seat. “The disciplinary board will be in touch with you shortly. Please gather your things and show yourself out. Thank you.”

Arthur stares, struggles to breathe, flashes back to the week Eames was in town, to reading through all of his essays and dismissing the claims of plagiarism, dismissing the jumpiness of his academic papers when he was reading them for inspiration, and he has to run outside to throw up in a trash can, shaking so hard he thinks his bones might shatter apart.

The scribe doesn’t look at him as he races past her.

**don’t break character**

Arthur sends Eames an email immediately when he can finally take his laptop out of his bag without dropping it, gets a misdirected bounce-back email in return, and then he’s left sitting on the edge of a planter, wanting to push his computer onto the ground and watch it smash around his feet like the rest of his life. He doesn’t know how to react, doesn’t know how to tell Mal and Dom, or how to face Saito, or how to get in contact with Eames. It’s--Arthur draws in a breath, slowly begins to pack his things again. The sun shines overhead, bright and brilliant, and Arthur thinks, _of course_.

Dom finds him in the bar on campus three hours later, slides into the seat next to him silently and orders them two beers. He squints at the countertop, doesn’t say a word until Arthur laughs, sharp and bitter and sudden. “Jesus Christ, Dom, what the fuck do I do? Where can I even go from here? There’s no way to challenge him--he’s done this before, he has a strong, _false_ foundation in the academic community. I’m just--I’m just some kid from California.”

“No, you’re not.” Dom sighs, tips his beer sideways to pick at the label. “I’ll stand up for you. I have all the logs showing when you were in the lab using the PASIV, all the details about what we were doing. I know you were talking to Saito about it, so he should be able to stand up for you as well. You have your dream journal, and you know exactly what you’re talking about you. You can _prove_ it, if they would give you a chance to take them down into a dream with them.”

 _Fuck_ , does Arthur ever wish it was that easy. “I can’t ask you to put your academic reputation on the line. I’ve already fucked Saito over and embarrassed the shit out of him. His name is going to take a hit from this alongside mine, and I can’t--I can’t do that to you, too. Mal would kill me, for one thing.” He forces a laugh, downs the last dregs of his bottle.

“Fine, but you can still show them the logs, and your dream journal. If you won’t let me stand up for you, you have at least that, and my signatures on all the paperwork allowing you access to the PASIV. We have all the research stored away, everything from your first dream to the very last.” Dom nods decisively, drums his fingers along the edge of the bar. “We’ll figure something out, Arthur. We didn’t do all this work for nothing.”

Arthur looks up, finds Dom staring at him fiercely, and he has to smile, has to nudge Dom’s side with his elbow. “Hey, I just--thank you. I’m sorry for misjudging you. You’ve done a lot for me, Dom.”

“I had to, or you never would have let me date Mal,” Dom says, setting his beer down, and his eyes are so earnest that Arthur can’t help but laugh.

“Mal doesn’t give a fuck what I want,” Arthur reminds him. “But it definitely would have been much more difficult.”

Dom grins. “This is like the alternate storyline from the--”

He shakes his head, stands up to grab his coat as Dom gestures wildly with his hands, eyes wide with excitement.

At least Arthur’s still got this.

**the way it was**

Mal takes one look at him when he and Dom walk into the apartment and reaches back over the edge of the couch to grab the house phone, holds it out to him. “Call Mom,” she says, grabbing Dom’s sleeve and steering him toward her bedroom. “And then you can explain it to me.”

Mom is, understandably, confused, angry, and comforting in turns, and by the time Arthur hangs up, Mal and Dom have migrated to the kitchen. They’re talking in hushed voices, moving around each other to prepare dinner, and Arthur pauses in the doorway to watch them, tired and worn down. Mal looks so much better than she had six months ago, looks healthier and brighter, and Dom’s shirts are stainless, his hands sure as he dices carrots for the salad.

Arthur wonders if his success was holding them back, and reconsiders because it makes him feel too self-important to take the blame, too arrogant.

“At least you finished the semester with the kids?” Mal suggests as she’s passing him a plate ten minutes later.

“True. I’m guessing Ariadne won’t want to email me about her writing anymore, now that I’m about to be known as a plagiarist,” Arthur sighs, looking down into his wine glass. “Fuck, this is going to ruin everything.”

“I want to say I never say this coming--I didn’t, by the way,--but... Eames always did seem a little strange,” Mal muses, frowning. She sets her plate down on the kitchen table, turns around again to grab the bottle of wine and top her glass off. “I wish I’d gotten to known him better.”

“He was only here for a week, and I spent that time blinded by his face.”

Dom twirls his fork in his pasta, drops some on the table and hastily picks it up again in one movement. “Tell me about him again. Get your computer. We can call this a work meeting.”

Arthur eyes him shrewdly. “You’re just going to spill on it. Maybe we should wait and reconvene for research on the couch _after_. It’ll be just like the grape soda you spilled on my notes that one time.”

“Speaking of your notes,” Mal says, “Did you leave them at the university today or are they still hidden in the mass of paperwork on the coffee table?”

“The actual notebook for the dream work is still in my office--I’ll have to go pick it up when I clear it out tomorrow, I guess. I’ve got it all copied to my laptop though.”

“I think we’ll need the hard copy for this. They’ll think you just copied it or found a PDF somewhere.”

“I know.” He rolls his neck back, sets his fork on his empty plate and tips back onto two legs of his chair as he contemplates the ceiling. Dom starts telling Mal about the procedure for challenging the ruling and he frowns, wondering where Eames even learned of his research. The only people aware of it were Dom, Saito, and Mal, and none of them would breathe a word of it to an outsider without Arthur’s express permission.

“What I want to know is _how_ he got my research, how he even knew it was _there_ ,” Arthur says, settling down onto all four legs of the chair again. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Dom’s expression turns confused. “That’s... a really good question actually. I think we need to talk over every meeting you had with him.”

Arthur tells him about meeting Eames for coffee, about teaching with Eames in the back of the classroom--and then he remembers the meeting. “I... Mal, do you remember? How he took off after that class?”

She nods. “It did seem rather abrupt, yes. He mostly asked about you personally rather than your lesson. I thought--I thought he was just interested in you, not fishing for details about your life he could use to his advantage.”

Arthur sighs. “Makes sense, though. If he talked to you enough, he could learn my habits, learn where I kept my research and how I organized things. He only stayed long enough to get me interested, to set me on the path he wanted to extrapolate on. I’m not sure if he knew what I would come up with--I don’t think any of us did--but he was sure I’d hit on something.”

“I think we need to find your notebook tomorrow. I’m starting to feel that it won’t be there,” Dom says, shaking his head.

“Yeah,” Arthur agrees. “Me too.”

**dark horse running in a fantasy**

Dom’s right.

Arthur packs up his entire office, tears it apart searching for the bundle of little red notebooks that contain the original physical documentation of his research, the crudely drawn diagrams and annotated dreams and his thought processes, the progression from alighting in the dreams without projections to actively conversing with them to learning _control_.

He cusses a blue streak, startles the assistant professor who shares the room with him so badly that the guy knocks his coffee right off the edge of the desk. “Hey, Miles, did you ever see anyone snooping through my side of the office?”

“Uh, no,” Miles says, trying to soak up the spilled coffee with tissues and failing miserably. “Just your TA.”

“I--” Arthur breathes in sharply through his nose. “When?”

“I dunno, a while ago, Arthur. What does it matter?”

“Nothing, nevermind. I’ll see you around,” Arthur snaps, stalking out of his office and pulling out his phone. “Eames posed as my TA,” he snarls at Mal.

“You’re not even a tenured professor. Why would you have a TA?”

“Fucked if I know.”

He can hear her moving through the phone, hear heels clacking against marble, the subdued voices of tour groups in the background as she exits the exhibition in the main room of the museum. “Hmm, I guess he can blend in perfectly in the real world as well.”

“I’d like to see him in a dream with me again. See how he fares this time,” Arthur snarls.

“Arthur, he’s disappeared.”

“If I can mold the dreamscape into something with purpose, Mal, I’m fairly certain I can navigate the real world enough to find him. I’m going to. I’m going to find him and force him to admit he stole my research and published it under his name, and then I’m going to go around to every single person who has ever complained he’s plagiarized off of their work, and force Eames to respond to every complaint. He can’t get away with this, Mal. If I have to leave and literally hunt him down, _I will._ ”

**i never was a quitter**

Arthur packs a backpack with a few changes of clothes, necessary bathroom supplies, his laptop, and the rest of his pertinent research; he asks Saito for direction, tells him where he’s going and won’t hear a word about how it will look for him to run away when he’s under investigation by the academic board. He plans to head to the university Eames claimed to represent first and then head from there, find leads to guide him, and once he’s ready, he has Dom and Mal drop him off at the airport.

“Got everything?” Mal asks, trying to pull a small piece of gum from the ends of her hair.

He shrugs his backpack on more comfortably, pushes up his sunglasses. “Yeah. I’ll just have you mail shit if I end up staying somewhere for too long. I doubt that will be the case but be on standby anyway.”

“Don’t forget to check in with us when you can,” she says, giving up on the gum. She looks up at him seriously. “And try not to get arrested for murder, if you can help it.”

Dom snorts a laugh out, reaches out with the arm not around Mal’s shoulders to slap Arthur’s arm awkwardly. “Arthur wouldn’t do that.”

“I might,” he says mildly, grinning again when Dom squints at him suspiciously. “Don’t hate me if it happens, yeah?”

“‘Course,” Dom says automatically.

“I’ll hate you if you don’t let me help.” Mal’s smile is sharp around the edges, dangerous, and Arthur knows better than to underestimate it. He almost hopes he doesn’t find Eames, but when he remembers the feeling that washed through him like bleach during his defense that sympathy all but disappears.

“That’s my cue,” Arthur says as a voice crackles on the speakers overhead. “Please don’t have sex in my room, and clean up after yourselves. Dom, leave your action figures at your own apartment please. And _call me_ before you do something drastic like sell my apartment or move across the country.”

“Spoilsport,” Mal grumbles, stepping forward to hug him. “Be safe. Be cunning.”

“Promise. I’ll see you in a few weeks hopefully?”

“Yeah, we’ll throw you a proper celebratory party when you get back.” Dom smiles, claps him on the back again. “See you when you’ve got your good reputation back.”

The flight to Chicago is shorter than he expects, quiet and boring, but he feels angrier with each passing minute, more betrayed than he has yet. Eames had started off as a pretty face, become something of an idol in the short time he visited, and Arthur still hasn’t responded in the way he wants to--so far the buildings he’s had the urge to burn down remain standing against his better judgment.

What he really wants is revenge. He wants to get credit for his research, yes, but he also wants to throw Eames off, the same way Eames threw him off the first time he forged for Arthur.

Arthur wants a PASIV. Arthur wants to slide the needle cleanly into Eames’ veins, wants to push the plunger and immerse him in a hell shaped entirely by Arthur’s whim and will, introduce him to projections with their own agency and awareness.

Arthur wants Eames to regret every single thing he’s done from the moment he first took an interest in him.

**just how thick is your skin**

It takes him four weeks to get a lead. He checks in with Eames’ previous university, finds that he’s on sabbatical and may not return specifically to Chicago. Eames’ department head refuses to meet with him until July, and she’s hostile right from the start, bringing up the claims of plagiarism, refusing to tell him anything until Arthur asks, “Did you read it? My thesis--his latest essay?”

The woman nods, body set in a way that makes Arthur think she’s planning to kill him.

“Did you understand it? Were you able to reconstruct the dream?”

She hesitates before shaking her head slowly.

“Did he ever go under with you when you asked about it, to show you? Did he talk about the progress he was making or just spring this out of the blue? Does he have the time logged in the PASIV that it would have taken to thoroughly prove this?”

“I... Eames has his own PASIV device,” she says finally. “So, no, we don’t have records. And he’s always done this. He doesn’t like the added pressure of telling the school precisely what he’s doing at all times, and he always takes a vacation right after publishing.”

“It’s because he’s been plagiarizing, and not just from me.” Arthur sighs, leans forward in his seat to lean his elbows on his knees. “Look, I can prove that the research is mine. I can _do_ the things that paper talks about, with ease. You can look at my projections and see that it _couldn’t_ have been written by anyone else.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Then at least tell me where I can get in contact with Eames. I need to speak with him and see if this is just a misunderstanding, or if he forgot to add my name and my case notes to the document alongside his.”

Because Arthur’s finally read that paper. He finally knows _exactly_ which parts of his work Eames stole, knows because he’s highlighted the accompanying sections in the PDF version of his research, knows because Arthur _had to_ see it for himself, and he knows that Eames added little sections of transition, that Eames reworded some of it into a cadence more natural for him, and that it still comes off as stiff and disconnected at times where Eames misinterpreted the idea Arthur was trying to put forward.

He could have at least kept the thing in original condition.

She finally gives him an email she assures him will connect him with Eames at some point, shakes her head the entire time she’s ushering him from her office until she’s standing behind him with a hand on the door, staring. “If you’re telling the truth, this is going to set the academic field of Dreaming and all of it’s sub departments on fire, and this university will take the brunt of it.”

Arthur nods. “I know. I’m sorry about that, but I won’t let him get away with claiming two years of research as his own work. Right now _I_ am taking the brunt, and I’m not nearly accommodating enough for that.”

“What would it take to make this go away?” she asks finally, desperately, when he’s down the hallway.

“Tell Eames to contact me!” he yells back, “Or I really will go public, and I’ve got enough to prove it!”

**you will not escape the rising of the tide**

He starts to think Eames isn’t going to show, starts to organize the side by side comparison, calls Dom and asks if he thinks getting one of the board members down in the dreamscape with him would help. It seems nearly impossible that Eames could steal so much research without any ramifications, and Arthur finally thinks to contact the others who once claimed Eames had stolen their work, others ejected from their field of study in disgrace.

He meets with three of them, finds that two told the truth and one used Eames as a cover story.

The first Arthur meets with is a small man named Yusef who makes a compelling case about Somnasynthetic and how the drug was first harnessed, how different compounds actually have an effect on the dream. He’s working in a pharmacy when Arthur catches up with him, sarcastic and bitter as soon as Arthur opens his mouth and asks about the claims of plagiarism.

“Look, I bloody _told_ you lot to fuck off,” he snaps, slamming a bottle down for a startled-looking woman. “You’ve already dragged my name through the mud. I’m not going to let you do it again just after I’ve found a stable job.”

“No, I--I apologize. I’m Arthur Levine. I’m here to hear your side of the story and see if it matches up with what happened to me.” Arthur drums the fingers of one hand along the counter, hitches the strap of his backpack up higher with the other. “I’m a victim too.”

Yusef frowns, lets the woman pay, and finally turns to face him. “What are you talking about?”

“Four years ago, Harold Eames published an academic paper on the effects different compounds have on lucid dreaming,” Arthur says slowly, shifting his weight. “And you claimed he had stolen the research from you, plagiarized your work, didn’t you? You’re not the only one he’s betrayed like that.”

“What did he take from you?” Yusef asks, tilting his head.

“The means of giving a dreamer, and by default his projections, agency within the dream, and the ability to mold the dream as it needs to be.”

Yusef stares. “I’m off at four thirty today. Let’s get tea.”

“I’ve got one more who might join us. She’ll be flying in tomorrow morning.”

“He’s stolen from all of us?”

Arthur smiles, slow, wide, hitching his backpack up again. “Yeah, but he’s not going to get away with it this time.”

**but the dream doesn’t die**

Talulah Bell is tall, blonde, and whip smart, carting around a PASIV Arthur highly suspects isn’t supposed to be in her hands. She smiles, presses herself up against him in the elevator on the way up to the conference room where Yusef is meant to meet them, and he has to edge back, wary. She’s dangerous, and she proves it without doubt when they all go down into the dream to illustrate the validity of their claims--she can forge just as well as Eames, better, maybe, and, moreso, has the papers detailing the exploration behind the execution, the research and timeline and even proof of her having met Eames.

“You know they’ll just say dream sharing is a small field and of course we’d all have a connection to Eames,” Yusef muses. “I don’t know how you plan to spin this, Arthur.”

“I wasn’t in the dream side of academics,” Arthur says, smiling. “I’m just a guest lecturer in the field of literature.”

Talulah laughs, clear as a bell. “So was I. I started forging with literary figures, started exploring real people and made up people at Eames’ suggestion. Why didn’t I ever think of going public with this myself?”

“You only had your side of the story. I searched both of you out because I knew I couldn’t be the only one, and if we can prove the connection between Eames, our research, and the published papers, we might be able to besmirch his name enough and cast doubt upon the validity of his academic prowess. Three claims of plagiarism is much harder to throw off than a single one from someone who doesn’t even have a doctoral degree yet.”

“You think he’ll actually contact us?” Yusef muses, tapping a small vial of solution against the edge of the table. “Eames seemed rather self-assured when I last met him. I don’t know that this will get through to him.”

“I’ve got it covered.” Arthur grins, pulls one of the clean lines from the PASIV to reconnect it and allow Yusef a clean trial run. “We’ve just got to prove we know what the fuck we’re talking about, better than he does, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Talulah settles back in her seat, smirking. “Oh, I like this. I like this a lot.”

**boy, you was battle born**

Arthur documents every meeting between the three of them, makes copies of the flashdrives to give to each of them, and finally heads back to Eames’ department chair, slips into her office without an appointment to set an extra copy down on her desk. “You might want to look at this, because this will be going viral in a week if Eames doesn’t agree to meet with us.”

She swallows, stares up at him, nods tersely. “Fine. Now get the fuck out of my office.”

He goes, meets up with Yusef for brunch around the corner from his pharmacy, and Talulah cheerfully meets them twenty minutes later, breathless as she slings herself into her seat. “How’d it go?”

Yusef pushes her croissant across to her, sips at his coffee while Arthur takes a moment to swallow. “I told her she’s got a week or we’re going public. That gives us a week to find someone _willing_ to publish, and someone who won’t force the publication if Eames actually steps forward about this.”

“One of my... friends, you could say, might be willing,” Talulah says, lowering her eyes demurely. Arthur shivers, doesn’t ask what kind of friend. “I’ll ask him.”

“Good. So we all understand how we’re doing this, what our objective is? This isn’t going to get out of hand. We’re not going to go around throwing mud on everyone associated with him.”

“Yes, Arthur. I’m not going to fuck this one up, not when I finally have the chance to get credit for my work,” she says, voice hardening. “I’m one of the only women in this field, and to be thrown out like that... I want revenge, yeah, but I also want more than that. I want an apology, for all the good that will do.”

Yusef nods along, takes another sip of his coffee. “Yes, credit and an apology would be just the thing.”

“Good.” He finally settles back in his chair, picks a piece of his bagel apart. “I’m so ready to go home. I want my degree.”

**you’re gonna get back on your feet**

Arthur hasn’t heard from Eames’ department head yet, and there are two days until Eames’ time is up. He’s sitting in his hotel room, going over the presentation of the proof once again, muttering under his breath when someone knocks on his door.

“Tallie, I’m busy!”

“Open the door, Arthur.”

He stops immediately, tilts his head as his brain whirrs through memories. “Fuck,” he mutters, pulling out his phone to text Yusef and Talulah.

“Arthur!”

“Just a second!”

He throws the door open to see Eames standing in his doorway, glaring, taking up more space than Arthur remembers. “What the fuck is all of this about, then?”

“Eames,” he says, straining for calm. His phone buzzes in his back pocket. “Excuse me for a moment.”

“What do you mean, _Eames is at your hotel room?_ ” Yusef demands.

“Exactly what I said. Should I talk to him first?”

“I--yes. I’m not off work until five today, and Tallie is doing something probably illegal downtown. If you can, get him to stick around and meet with all three of us, since we all have grievances. Sedate him if you have to.”

Arthur rolls his eyes, steps aside to let Eames in. He’s practically vibrating with anger, and Arthur doesn’t give a single fuck.

“I’ll see you here at five thirty, then. Text Tallie for me, will you?”

“Don’t fuck this up, Arthur,” Yusef says lowly. “We’re trusting you with this.”

Arthur puts his phone away again, closes the door behind him and finally turns to face Eames. “Nice of you to show up. Cutting it a little close to the deadline, aren’t you?”

“You can’t do this,” Eames snaps. “Nobody will believe you. You’ll just be making a fool of yourself.”

“Which is why you’re here, defensive and angry and full of insults and desperate pleas.” Arthur levels him with a glare, crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s time you came clean, Eames. You owe us that much, since we gave you our research and our good names.”

Eames purses his lips, eyes all of the materials spread across Arthur’s small coffee table. Arthur can practically see him take on a new persona, calming down considerably as he falls into the free armchair. “Look, can we talk bluntly?”

“If you like,” Arthur says, taking a seat on the coffee table after clearing a spot. He takes his phone out, turns on the voice recorder. “And if you don’t mind, I’m keeping this out.”

“This isn’t a lecture hall.” Eames offers a smile, and it’s so out of place in the conversation that Arthur can only stare, can only grudgingly admit Eames is a good actor when he needs to be, but he’s carried this around too long to let it slide.

“No, it’s not. This is a business meeting wherein you are going to give us back the credit for our research.”

“I’m not giving you credit that belongs to me.”

Arthur feels his mouth thin, twists his fingers around each other. “I swear to God, Eames, Mal wants to set you on fire.”

The mask slips a bit, shows the begrudging acknowledgement before Eames is leaning back in his seat, drawling, “Suppose she’s not the only one. From what I hear, Talulah has moved on to a life of crime. I’m sure she could set it up.”

“Are you threatening us?”

“Oh, no. Not at all, Arthur. I’m just acknowledging that Talulah--Tallie, did you say?--probably has the connections necessary, not to mention supposed motivation. She never took it well when I left. Probably hasn’t had a good lay since.” Eames smiles.

“Hmm, of course.” Arthur sits up straighter. “And what do you have on Yusef and myself?”

“Yusef could probably kill me with prescriptions he either filches from work, or a blend he could mix up himself. He, too, has supposed motivation. As for you...” Eames seems to stall out, frowning. “You did just tell me your sister wants to kill me. I’m assuming you’re displacing yourself with Mal, in which case either or both of you wishes me dead.”

“None of us want you dead,” Arthur says, trying to feel like he’s not lying, “but we do want our credit where it’s due. We want acknowledgement.”

“Of what? Of your whining?”

Arthur breathes out through his nose, slow, determined. He didn’t expect it to be like this, didn’t expect to be so detached from the situation, didn’t expect that he would still be thinking Eames is attractive. He’s devious, cunning, and Arthur finds it’s not something he’s turned off by.

He thinks of Tallie’s sharp heels making contact with his dick, lets that thought spur him on.

“Stop doing this, Eames.”

“Or what, Arthur? You go public? Who the fuck is going to believe three washed up, discredited plagiarists without degrees over someone with my clout, someone with my _name_?”

“Anyone who sees the evidence,” Arthur says. “And there’s a fuckload of it, Eames. We’ve cross-referenced until our eyes started to blur. I’ve gathered all the data. And, more than that, if it came down to it each of us can better explain our ideas, can better provide proof in the dreamscape. Have you managed to get your projections to behave properly yet? Can you morph the dream into whatever you desire it to be? Have you gotten any better at forging? What would happen if Yusef injected the blend he’s currently working on into the PASIV? How would that reflect upon your experience in the dream?” Arthur pauses, cracks his knuckles.

“I don’t believe any of you knows how to really dream, Arthur. Yusef was the only one with exposure to the PASIV when I met you. You have no connections to me other than a brief stop at your university, and dreaming isn’t your focus. If anything, you’re all amateurs. I’ve had the years to build up my talent in the dreamscape, to try things you haven’t ever thought about.”

“And things I told you how to think about,” Arthur cuts in.

The door to the room opens as soon as he closes his mouth, and Tallie stalks into the room, PASIV case swinging wildly at her side. “I should hit you upside the head with this, you motherfucking bastard.”

Eames stares at the PASIV. “Where did you get that?”

Tallie sets the case down on the kitchen counter, smiles, and Arthur notes the dings in the case, the scratches that weren’t on Tallie’s own PASIV. “Oh, I just happened to find it,” she says innocently. “Alongside these.”

Arthur’s red notebooks drop down onto the counter, bundled up tightly to keep the loose pages together.

Eames is on his feet a second later, moving toward her before Arthur steps in front of her, adrenaline rushing as he pushes Eames back. “Sit the fuck down. We are nowhere near done with this.”

“None of this is legal. The board of educators won’t accept it as proof of anything. You’ve stolen my property--”

“The same way you stole ours,” Tallie snaps. “So you can shut the fuck up about us stealing it back.”

Eames slowly sinks back down into his seat. “What do you want?”

“We each have conditions, Eames.”

“Would you just fucking get on with it, Arthur?”

“Look, this wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t--”

“What, slept with you? Is that what made you think you were special? Is that what made you do this? You’re mad because I left in the middle of the night?”

Tallie starts laughing from the kitchen and Arthur sighs. “Yes, Eames, that’s precisely it. It has nothing to do with three months of malnourishment and sleep deprivation, nothing to do with researching until I couldn’t see my apartment beneath all my my resources, nothing to do with all the work Dom Cobb did with me and all the access he got me to the PASIV device. It’s got nothing to do with going in to defend my dissertation with absolute confidence because my idea was something _new_ , something unexplored, and then being told that it was all worthless, because it had been stolen from me. Obviously I’m out for revenge because of the single time we fucked.”

Eames stares at him.

“What, were you expecting me to be in love with you?”

“Oh, Eames, just because you slept your way through the academic field in order to steal our research, doesn’t mean we’re angry at you for that. I don’t know about Arthur, but you were a fairly decent lay and waking up to you gone was one of the best things in my life. I didn’t have to do the awkward morning after dance with you--and I hate that dance with a passion.” Tallie taps her fingernails over the case of the PASIV. “So, what do you say we clear the air a bit, hmm? Give us a confession, because you’ll not be fucking us out of existence again.”

**come on, give us one more spark**

Dom sends him the article from _Somnium Quarterly_ , the academic journal for the field of Dream Research, including psychology, imagery, and technology, and Eames reads it over, pale-faced. His hands shake by the time he puts the tablet down, and Yusef grins at him from his spot on the floor.

“Good, yeah? Arthur makes a lovely researcher, you see. He compiled everything we needed, brought us together, pushed us through everything. you’re very lucky he extended you this offer, because I wanted to publish anyway. I probably would have published without even warning you.” Yusef pops a handful of almonds into his mouth, crunching away merrily.

“What’s your decision, Eames?” Tallie finally demands after they’ve allowed him a few minutes to process. “You can see that even if the article doesn’t truly get us credit, it still has more than enough proof to cast doubt on you and your integrity. People are going to want to start observing your research, checking up on all of your old papers rather than just these three. It’s a rather compelling story Arthur’s put together here.”

“I--how do you want me to do this?” Eames rubs his hand over his face, slowly, and Arthur starts to smile.

“Let’s take it from the top and get an admission on record, shall we?”

**the rising tide, the undertow, the filling in, the overflow**

Ariadne emails him in October, when he’s neck deep in research with Yusef about the effects Somnacin, the new blend, has on his own findings.

_Arthur--_

_Thank you for having faith in me and encouraging me with my writing, and thank you for patiently editing what I sent you and hashing out plotlines with me. I felt you should be the first to know that I’m being published! They’ve accepted the proposal for my book and the manuscript I sent in! Thank you so much for your input, and be sure to look for your name in the acknowledgements section when it finally comes out, Doctor Levine._

_Hope you, Dom, and Mal are doing well! (And tell that Yusef fellow you’re working with that the tea he sent Mal was lovely.)_

_I love your new book, by the way. Was_ inter unum somnium et alterum _really based on the events of last semester? The publishers will eat it up!_

__

Ariadne Miller

**in your wildest dream**

**Author's Note:**

>  **disclaimer:** inception and its characters belong to chris nolan. line breaks and title are from various songs by the killers.
> 
>  **betas:** a world of thanks to [ linsa](http://wordsandwhims.livejournal.com) and [amanda](http://jiokra.livejournal.com) for keeping me (mostly) sane, and to everyone else who even so much as opened this document

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The First Dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/690163) by [Gloriana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gloriana/pseuds/Gloriana)




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